Silva sings Sigurdsson’s praises

Everton were always in control today at Leicester City, and came away with a deserved win, thanks to a stunning goal from Gylfi Sigurdsson and some hapless football from their hosts which saw multiple turnovers and captain Wes Morgan sent off for the second time this season.

After the game, Marco Silva praise Gylfi Sigurdsson who notched his fourth Premier League goal in four games, and also his fiftieth of all time.

“It was fantastic for Gylfi. His quality in that moment showed how good he is and the way he took the ball and shot was fantastic. It was the winning goal and to be honest I think we deserved the three points.

“I cannot talk to you about last season because I wasn’t here and it’s not fair but I know his quality. He’s playing a different role (to last season) and our style is completely different.

“I know his quality… if you can create and build a style of play that can fit players like him it will help.

“What Gylfi is doing is because he’s working really hard. Every day, he prepares himself to play at this level and with this intensity. It’s not just what he’s giving us with the ball. It’s what he can give us and how he helps the team without the ball as well.”

Bernard was unstoppable in the first half and created the Blues opener in the seventh minute, his jinking run carrying him past two static defenders before he found Richarlison to stab home with a cross into the box. Silva insisted that how Everton looked in the first half was what he has been looking for from his side.

“We have to give minutes to Bernard to get him in better physical condition for this level and this intensity and he is getting better every time.

“This afternoon, we changed it [Everton’s formation] and put him on the left. He can give us different things and different final decisions, like when he crossed for the first goal and like when he had some moments to give chances for Theo to score as well.

”And, of course, with Richarlison up front he can give us different things from Cenk Tosun, Dominic Calvert-Lewin and Oumar Niasse. I made that decision within our strategy for the match.

“That performance is our image. I think in the future this will increasingly be the image of our team, I don’t doubt that.

“In our squad we have many, many things we need to keep improving, it’s a really young squad and in some moments we need to be more mature, like the moment we conceded the first goal.

“At this level you cannot give this chance to our opponent to score in that moment because we were in control of the match.

”But we created chances, we came here and showed from the first minute how much we wanted to win the match and these three points are for our players and fans. They were fantastic this afternoon.”

The Blues came away with their first Premier League away win of the season, and will also be left with a sense of what could have been had they beaten Southampton at home four days ago, with the Saints now coming here in a few weeks in the Carabao Cup Fourth Round.