Silva pays no attention to concerns over progress

Everton manager Marco Silva has stressed he is not interested in a comparison between how the club are faring in the Premier League at the moment and how they were at this stage last season.

The Merseyside club’s 1-0 home loss to Leicester on New Year’s Day, their fourth defeat in five matches, left them 10th in the table with 27 points from 21 games.

After 21 matches last term they had the same amount of points and were ninth, which was also the case on January 1 following their 22nd fixture of the campaign.

At that time, Everton were managed by Sam Allardyce, the third man to have been in charge that season, who ended up guiding them to an eighthplaced finish before being replaced by Silva in May.

Silva’s men, lacklustre against Leicester, have won only once in their last eight outings.

When asked about Everton’s situation in terms of the table compared to the same point last season, and if he was worried by a lack of progress, the Portuguese said: “I am not here to compare these type of things, about last season.

“I am concerned with the result we didn’t achieve, with our performance, with the performance we had in the last away game as well [Saturday’s 1-0 loss at Brighton].

“This is what is my concern now, and to change the situation – not about the points we have now and we had last season at the same moment. It is not for me to analyse this situation. About the points and the position in the table – we look at the end of the season.

Everton had a run of five wins in seven league games prior to claiming one in eight, and the victory in the latter sequence was a 5-1 triumph at Burnley on Boxing Day.

Silva said: “We already achieved good things, we already did the good things, the normal things in football.”