Everton travel to London this week for our final game of the season, as Willie Kirk's side face Chelsea in the fifth round of the Vitality FA Cup on Thursday (7pm BST). 

The two sides met in last season's competition played in September 2020, with the Toffees coming out victorious in a 2-1 victory at Goodison Park. 

Manager Kirk sat down for his final press conference of 2020/21.

Memories of beating Chelsea at Goodison Park earlier this season... 

We will take inspiration and guidance from the game at Goodison when we beat them 2-1.

I remember speaking to a couple members of my staff after the game, we were in the manager's office at Goodison. 

We just beat Chelsea yet we all felt there was so much more to come from the performance and so much more to come from this team. 

It's very vivid that memory. 

We beat them that night but we still felt there was loads to work on, improve on, and we've been trying to do that since. 

Fast forward eight months and we will be hoping to repeat it again. 

The benefit of the long gap between games...

It has worked out really well for us. 

We gave the players a couple of days off last week. 

We then had a couple of days that there was no focus on a match. 

The players looked bright, refreshed and then we started preparing on Saturday. 

The training sessions were fantastic. 

The intensity, competitiveness, application.

We are preparing in a very positive way for the game and we will finish off those preparations in the next couple of days and then we'll be looking to finish the season on a real high. 

The reaction of Chelsea following their Champions League final defeat...

I'm trying to put myself in Emma's [Hayes] shoes and I was trying to speak to my coaches this morning how I would approach it if I was in her position.

How you get those players recovered physically and mentally to then take part in an FA Cup game.

They've been very open, they want to win as many trophies as possible.

I would imagine they would come at us with a full-strength squad.

I think the players will feel they have to pay Emma something back from the other night.

Saying you want to do that and physically and mentally, being able to do that once the game starts is another thing and I think we can help influence that.

I think we have to start the game brightly. We have to make sure that what happened to Chelsea doesn't happen to us and we concede early.

I don't think we necessarily have to score early but it would certainly help if we don't concede early.

We will try to exploit that and try to get on top of them and make them feel uncomfortable and hopefully a couple of them will find themselves during the game not really wanting to be on the pitch.

Wanting that season to be finished and wanting to lick their wounds from that night in Gothenburg.

We'll try use it to our advantage but actually making it happen is a difficult thing. 

Update on injuries and fitness of the squad...

Nothing new. Hopefully we get through the next few days okay. 

Everybody seems to be fit. Abbey-Leigh Stringer missed the last game with a knock. She's back on the pitch and in team sessions so she'll add to the squad. 

It's still Dan Turner who will be a long-term one. 

Everybody is still fighting to get into that last starting 11 of the season. 

Thoughts on the season...

I'm comfortable with it. 

We've not progressed as far as I would like. 

Statistically, we've overachieved in terms of the points we were expected to accumulate and the points that we have accumulated. 

I think we have accumulated 15 per cent on top of what was expected of us from a statistical point of view. 

We feel there's massive areas for improvement. 

We got to the FA Cup final which was a fantastic moment for the club and the players. 

The way the cup final panned out, it made us hungry to get there again as quickly as possible. 

If we are going to get there as quickly as possible in December, we're going to need to beat Chelsea again and history has to repeat itself. 

I'm comfortable but I also feel there's so much more to come from this squad and so much more we can improve next year.