Brands to Everton fans: “You saw the style that we want to play”

Despite finishing in eight place in the 2018-19 Premier League, most Everton fans were not too despondent in a large part due to how well the team played to close out the season.

A run of excellent results against the top six sides (three wins, two draws and a loss) had Blues quite satisfied with the direction Marco Silva was taking the club in, and after the last two transfer windows Marcel Brands had, the overall strategy is clear, visible and most importantly, appears to be working.

Brands doesn’t speak often, so it was a pleasant surprise to read some comments he made to evertontv about how the last season ended -

“In the final months of last season, you saw the style of play that we want to play. Marco and his staff worked hard on that.

”The style of play was coming more to all the players. It gave us the results and results give confidence. That was good to see and hopefully we can continue when we start the Premier League again in August.”

Speaking of which, the Premier League announced the 2019-20 schedule yesterday, and the Blues face a challenging fixture list with two especially difficult patches.

“The fixtures have been announced, which is always a special moment, and I was very curious to see it.

“We have some special things. In the first six games, we have two promoted teams [Aston Villa and Sheffield United].

”I think the start of the season is really important.

“We also have a very tough December month, when we play lot of top teams and have a lot of big challenges.”

Brands continued about facing the top six, especially in consecutive games -

“It was very good to see that the team can rise to those challenges. I think it was also good for the fans to see we have the confidence to beat them.

“That will also be the goal next season.

“The fixture list is interesting, you get them [difficult games] anyway and now we get them all after each other.

“It is a tough period, but we want to continue to do well in those matches.”

The Dutchman is confident that the Blues are better positioned for the next season than last year with both he and Silva having a year of experience at the Toffees under their belts. The Blues announced their preseason friendlies yesterday as well, and Brands stressed that the schedule was carefully curated with the upcoming season in mind.

“It is very important.

“Marco and myself came in quite late last year, and mainly the programme was already done. This year I prepared it along with Marco and [Club Secretary] David Harrison.

“I am very happy with the opponents and the challenges we have. It’s important you have strong opponents, so that we know where we are when the season starts.”

While it’s always good to hear from Brands, it’s usually the best when we see him speak in the transfer market, with a long list of washed-up players to get rid of, and some exciting talent being linked with the Toffees.