Silva confident of Moshiri backing

Marco Silva brushed off suggestions he is being put under pressure by Farhad Moshiri, insisting he shares the same ambition as the Everton owner.

Speaking at the club’s AGM earlier this week, Moshiri admitted that Everton’s current position of 11th is “not good enough” and the club harbours ambitions of competing for titles again in the future.

That was taken by some in the media as a coded message to Silva that current performances are not good enough.

That was put to the Toffees manager during his pre-Bournemouth press conference and was unsurprisingly wafted away.

Silva acknowledges that 11th place is not where the club wants to be at present but insists he shares Moshiri’s frustrations and has regular dialogue with him about the team’s progress.

“When you take out those words out of context you can read in your own way.

”With our owner and chairman we are talking every week, we don’t need a General Meeting to contact each other.

“I know what is their opinion and they know my opinion. I spoke before and told him what is our goal for the second half of the season. It is clear we have to do better than the first half.

“He is always a supportive owner like the chairman also. But their support is something they are giving every day.

“I want more, my players want more and they want more, it’s part of football. Since the first day I told you what is our goal.

“Also if you were at the last home game we were seventh position and no one was talking about the position in the table.”

Reflecting on the AGM in general Silva again confirmed that the club’s desire to compete for trophies was one of the reasons he joined the club.

However, the Portuguese was also keen to try and dampen short-term expectations and that any sustained success is likely to be several years away.

“It reflects our goals as a club, what we want to build and achieve in the future.

“It shows the ambition but no-one says it will be next season or in the next two or three seasons.

“We have a project as a club, this project is to build a team to step-by-step that can be ready to challenge for these types of ambitions and behind the scenes with work to improve the facilities, like the new stadium.

“I think it is a normal for a club like Everton. Even though it’s difficult to achieve something like that in the Premier League.

“We have support to go step by step to achieve something like that, but you have to look at everything in a holistic way.”

Everton take on the Cherries looking to recover from a horrendous December that yielded just one win, two draws and four defeats - followed up by another loss to Leicester on New Year’s Day.

Silva insists he, the staff and the players have analysed those matches and hope to learn some lessons going into the second half of the season.

“It was a tough December for us. Four matches in 10 days. Leicester wasn’t a good game. They scored from our mistake, we had chances to score but didn’t. We lost but it is in the past and we need to look forward.

“Our goal for the second half of the season is to do better than in the first. I want more and our players want more.

“Everyone is proud of us and our team and what we are doing. We want to win the next match. If you are achieving good results, we will have confidence to play good football.

“Things can change very quickly. One season is not just one month. We had a fantastic run before December.

“The first game we played in December everyone is proud of our team even though we didn’t get the result we wanted.

“Of course the results are the main thing but it doesn’t mean everything will change in 25 days.

“Results are key and it is what we want to achieve in the next match so help us get the confidence we had before December.”

When asked about Bournemouth specifically Silva gave the standard stock manager response when talking about an upcoming opponent.

“Bournemouth have a good style, good players and they are showing good ambition. It will be a tough match for us. We have to do everything we can to win

“They attacked the market straight away. It will be a tough match for us. We have to do everything we can to win the match.

“Every game is really tough. Even when you think it will be an easy game, it is really tough. We need to make sure we get a result.”