Sean Dyche’s side racked up their fifth clean sheet in six Premier League outings with Sunday’s [**hard-fought stalemate with title challengers Chelsea**](http://www.clickliverpool.com/sport/everton-fc/55336-everton-0-0-chelsea-three-talking-points-friedkin-group-sean-dyche/).
It marks a remarkable transformation since the Blues began the new top-flight campaign by shipping a combined 13 goals in their opening four games.
But Tarkowski believes a disjointed pre-season lay at the heart of those early fragility issues and admits that he also personally struggled in that period.
He said: “As a whole team, we had a broken pre-season.
“We just felt a little bit undercooked when we came into the season. I felt personally undercooked, and I think the team looked that way.
“Now we have got our fitness levels there, everyone is working as units. We look strong, and teams are struggling to break us down.
“Then we have got a top-class goalkeeper and, when we need him, he makes saves for us.
“I feel like under this manager we have been like that for a lot of the time.
“You are always going to go through patches when you lose games, and people will question us, but we always have belief in what we do.
“We have kept probably the most clean sheets in the league now, so it shows how well we are working defensively as a team.
“We always know we need to get more goals; that is what we expect of ourselves, and hopefully they will come.”
Everton’s resilient display marked back-to-back shutouts against Premier League title contenders, having frustrated Arsenal on the previous weekend.
“I still want to walk off that pitch with three points, but we understand who we are playing against,” insisted Tarkowski.
“This is a team who are flying at the minute, with top, top players.
“It was always going to be a difficult day, but we actually made a couple of good chances, the two best chances in the game, so we are competing right up there with a team like this.
“We just move forward and recover because we know we have another tough game coming up in a few days’ time.”
The Goodison Park encounter also marked a first public appearance by The Friedkin Group since they became the club’s new owners late last week.
Tarkowski added: “I think as players we are a bit more shielded from it \[compared to\] the manager because the manager has to speak to you lot (the media) every week and answer questions about it.
“We are shielded from it, but it is nice. All done and a nice positive feeling around the place.
“People are all excited about what is ahead, with the new stadium and ownership now all sorted, so let’s hope for a good few years ahead for the club.”