Potent mix of Silva & Sterling makes for tasty City cocktail SILVA’S FEELING SMILES BETTER

MARCO SILVA dodged a bullet as his Everton stars finally let him smile.

After four straight Premier League defeats, the Toffees boss had a gun to his head with fans calling for the sack.

But his players eased the heat with a convincing 2-0 win over West Ham.

The pressure was building on Silva with calls for majority shareholder Farhad Moshiri – watching from the directors’ box at Goodison Park – to pull the trigger on the former Watford boss if they lost. Brazilian winger Bernard and Icelandic star Gylfi Sigurdsson delivered the victory Silva (below) wanted.

He said: “Pressure is normal in football and it’s there when you win. When you are in a good moment, the pressure is there to win more games.

“We were not good enough in the last results. But pressure has to be a pleasure, a privilege for us. We are doing what we love.

“We are a group, we are a team. The main thing is that we played football. When I see them express themselves like they did, that’s the main thing. When we play like we did today, the wins will be there.

“The quality and intensity was there from the first minute. It was really good, maybe we didn’t score as many as we deserved.

“It’s really important for us to score early when you play at home. In our last few games at home we didn’t score too early in games.

“The performance was really important for me. I expected a reaction because I know the players’ quality.

“We need the results and we need the points to improve our position in the table. At the end of the season, we’ll be smiling for sure.”