Walcott: Night out was key to Everton’s spirit

Delayed Christmas event has helped unite squad Pearson remains calm as Watford suffer bad run

There was no appetite for festivities at Everton in December, but Theo Walcott believes a late Christmas night out has helped to galvanise the squad under new manager Carlo Ancelotti.

Except for a respectable 2-1 defeat at Manchester City, Everton are unbeaten in the league under the Italian and claimed their fourth win in seven games with a dramatic turnaround at Vicarage Road on Saturday, with Walcott’s 90th-minute winner securing a 3-2 victory.

“We ended up not having a Christmas party, things weren’t great at the time, so we made the right decision. It [the night out] was a sort of private event and it worked so maybe we will do more,” said the former Arsenal and Southampton forward with a smile.

Even in the most dramatic moments there is an aura of calm around Ancelotti, understandable perhaps for a man who has managed Juventus, AC Milan, Chelsea, Paris St-germain, Real Madrid and Bayern Munich, among others.

The 60-year-old was the sole member of the Everton coaching staff who did not race down the touchline to celebrate Walcott’s winner with the players, and he joked: “If I run, I am dead.”

“He is a winner,” Walcott said. “Our manager gets a sense of calmness around the players. He brews confidence in you. He is so relaxed when he talks to you, he just talks to you like a human being, he doesn’t treat you any differently.

“We’ve not had a game for 10 days, so we have been working on the training ground and the manager has been able to get his message across to the players. Not just that. We have been able to socialise off the pitch as a team. It’s nice to see each other outside of football. That brought us together a little bit more; we are very together anyway but you could see people coming out of their shell a little bit more.”

Everton received intense criticism for losing 1-0 to what was effectively Liverpool’s under-23 side in the FA Cup last month. There is a sense the players are desperate to keep the fans on side, and the squad and supporters travelled back from Hertfordshire by train together. “We want to be together,” Walcott said. “If we want to push on we have to all be together – players, staff, fans, everyone in the community. I feel that is really important to the club.”

It has not been an easy two years on Merseyside for Walcott, now 30, since he was signed from Arsenal for more than £20million by Sam Allardyce. He managed only five league goals last season and Saturday’s winner at Watford was his first this term. “I have been doing a lot of stuff outside of football in the gym and everything to keep myself up with these young pups,” he said. “I feel relatively young to be fair and still have a lot of football to play in these legs, even if the groins are feeling tight now. I was pleased to keep up with Moise [Kean], who’s 19, and Richarlison is 22 and I am 30, so it’s not bad. If they can run at that pace at my age they will be doing well.”

After a brilliant start to life as Watford manager, Nigel Pearson is enduring a tougher spell, his side having lost their past two league fixtures. This Saturday they have a huge match at Brighton, before facing Manchester United and then Liverpool.

“I’m prepared for people going over the top when things are going well and likewise now, we’ve lost two Premier League games on the trot,” Pearson said. “We have to recover from this, it’s never an easy journey when you’re in a relegation battle. We’ve worked exceptionally hard to get back in contact.”