Carlo Ancelotti says Everton’s leap to second in the Premier League table is in line with the Club’s ambition to compete with the division’s leading clubs.

Everton moved to within five points of the summit after beating Arsenal on Saturday.

The success at Goodison Park completed a flawless week, which began with last Saturday’s 1-0 win over Chelsea and included a 2-0 victory at Leicester City on Wednesday.

Dominic Calvert-Lewin’s header deflected home via Arsenal defender Rob Holding to put Everton in front on 22 minutes.

The winning goal was scored by Yerry Mina, who climbed to place Gylfi Sigurdsson’s corner delivery past goalkeeper Bernd Leno – after Nicolas Pepe scored from the spot for Arsenal.

“The project is quite clear – to compete as we are at this moment,” said manager Ancelotti. 

“It is a long season, we want to compete until the end and I think we can.

“I think we're doing really well this season. We are in a good position in the table. 

“We have shown in the past three games a lot of consistency and a lot of spirit, so you have to be pleased with what we are doing now.

“This was a great result in a difficult game, so difficult in the second half.

“Arsenal played better than us in the second half, we were 2-1 up and wanted to defend properly

“It is true we defended and suffered but the first half was good and at the end of that half the score was fair.

“But we got the final result and this is the most important thing.”

Everton efficiently adjusted once more to accommodate the absence of the key figures of James Rodriguez and Lucas Digne, while Tom Davies adeptly filled the midfield void left by Allan, who was hurt against Leicester in midweek.

Mason Holgate and Ben Godfrey were outstanding in the full-back positions and there was a Herculean all-round performance up front from Calvert-Lewin.

Mina, who continued his solid defensive partnership with Michael Keane, struck the decisive goal after Leno conceded the corner with a full-stretch stop to repel Calvert-Lewin’s rising 25-yard effort.

Everton ceded possession to Arsenal after the break and David Luiz struck the post.

But Ancelotti’s side, who had opportunities on the counter, closed out their third straight win ahead of Manchester United’s visit on Wednesday for a Carabao Cup quarter-final tie.

“We are more consistent, more comfortable defensively, always with balance,” continued Ancelotti.

“The reason for these victories is we improved the defensive aspect.

“We work on [attacking] set pieces because we are strong ,we have scored lot of goals at set pieces because we have tall players like Yerry Mina and Michael Keane and Dominic Calvert-Lewin and we are dangerous there.

“We have some important injuries. But also, tonight, we were able to adapt. 

“I thought Tom Davies did really well to replace Allan, who is an important player for us. 

“I am really pleased with the spirit of the team. 

“We are not playing fantastic attacking football in this moment but the spirit of the team is really strong.

“I think we won these three games because of the spirit we showed.”