everton 1
Richarlison (38)
brighton 0
Everton manager Carlo Ancelotti admits getting back to winning ways was the most important thing his players could have done against Brighton.
Richarlison’s 38th-minute goal settled the match and came as a welcome relief after last weekend’s Merseyside derby embarrassment against Liverpool’s second string in the FA Cup third round.
“The most important part of the day was the result,” said the Italian after a first victory in three matches.
“The performance for 60 minutes was good.
“We were a bit slow at the beginning to build up from the back, but after that we were in the game, we could have scored a second one.
“But everything was OK, we defended well, suffering a little bit but absolutely normal.”
In the wake of the derby defeat, Everton have endured a difficult week. A small group of fans turned up at the training ground in an attempt to vent their frustrations at the players – instead, they were met by director of football, Marcel Brands – while Fabian Delph became embroiled in an argument on social media which led to the midfielder being booed when he came off the bench in the second half yesterday.
Ancelotti wants to change the mindset so that players are on the front foot from the off.
“The reaction was good, of course, but I think my idea is we that don’t have to react, we have to act,” he added.
“The fact we had to react means before we didn’t act well.”
Brighton, now with just one win in the last seven matches, allowed Everton to take the initiative, but improved after the break and substitute Glenn Murray could have snatched an equaliser with two minutes to go.
“We could have had something. We had a couple of opportunities with Glenn at the end,
we hit the bar (though Leandro Trossard), and got into the final third quite often without really doing well enough or creating enough chances to sit here and say we deserved something,” said manager Graham Potter.
“You get what you get. Our disappointment is we probably didn’t do enough in that final third to create as many chances as we’d like to and put them under pressure.
“We wanted to put them under a bit more pressure but we were unable to. We lacked quality in the final third.”