Silva calls for Everton character to halt poor run

Everton will need to dig deep to break out of the awful slump they find themselves in, having picked up just two points in the last five games and they find themselves in eleventh place in the Premier League table.

In lieu of the regular pre-match press conference with yesterday being Christmas Day, manager Marco Silva addressed some comments to the members of the media.

“Of course it is not what we want. It is a bad run - I don’t have doubts in saying that. When we had a good run before, in seven games we just lost against Manchester United and achieved very good points.

”Now is a bad run - it is clear for me. We have to face it with work, with quality, character and personality as well to change the results for us.

”It will be a tough match next up. It is always a tough match for all [clubs] to play against Burnley. We have to be really strong, as a team work together, to achieve a good result.”

The Toffees continue to suffer miserable results against the top six, only picking up one point from five games this season, four of them away from Goodison Park.

“We have to be strong against all [the clubs]. If you want to achieve something, and we want as a club to compete at a high level [the top six], we have to compete against all [opposition],” he added.

”Our bad run of results isn’t just against the top six. We had some games at home when we had the chance to pick up more points.

“Each game will be tough and we need to be strong, to work hard to achieve the points and our goals during the season. We didn’t achieve that in our last games.

”The next game will be a good opportunity for us to do something different for ourselves and our fans as well.”

Most of the Blues’s struggles have been of their own (un)doing, with England number one Jordan Pickford making a couple of egregious errors leading to goals against Liverpool and Tottenham Hotspur.

Silva refused to pinpoint the goalie though, saying the whole team has a collective responsibility.

“I don’t want to individualise just with Jordan.

”I know and I understand it was a key moment in the match, our team was really good, competing, but just because one of our players made a mistake everything cannot change in the match.

“Because you have to show personality, character in the match as well. I am not saying we did not show that but as a team we didn’t do enough to keep fighting for a different result.

”What we will do with Jordan, we will do with the others to change the situation as a team and not just with one or two players.”