Welcome back to Goodison Park. We’re glad to be on home soil again after Wednesday’s 3-0 victory over Burnley as we look to continue building positive momentum.
It’s not easy to win football matches in any competition and now we have managed five wins from our past seven games. Converting strong performances into victories was, of course, always going to be crucial and doing that breeds further confidence in the group and belief in what we are doing. The teamsmanship is growing, which is important.
Overall, I was very pleased with the Burnley performance. We started the game brightly, scored a good goal but then I think we came off it for a spell. I think we went a little bit soft and let them get back into the game, without troubling our goal too much. We corrected that at half-time and we were really strong in the second half and worthy winners.
The message at half-time was to be more positive and more aggressive. I wanted us to play forwards more, be more physical and I reminded the players of the hard yards that are required, because I’ve always believed in the quality we have here. Doing the hard yards, the gritty side and having the desire to do those things is important to go with that quality – and I think we saw those elements flood back into the team in the second half to finish the job.
I was asked afterwards about team selection and my response is two-pronged. Firstly, it’s a competition we are taking very seriously. Why wouldn’t we when silverware is at stake? Then, on top of that, if you want to be a successful team, you have got to play a lot of football. There is a lot of work to be done now before we can start to consider it again, but if we have ambitions of one day getting back into European competition, which I have been through at Burnley, the demands are high with the volume of matches.
The rest and recuperation and support systems that are in place now are better than ever. I want the mentality here to be, ‘I want to play every game’, with the belief that we can take them all on.
We look forward to the quarter-final against Fulham here at Goodison next month but for now, obviously, we have parked those thoughts and our full focus switches back to the Premier League.
I have spoken endlessly about consistency since I arrived here and that is now the challenge for us - to maintain and further improve our performance levels, while continuing to pick up points. There are no shortcuts in this league and hard work will continue to underpin everything we do.
Today we welcome Roberto De Zerbi, his players, staff and everyone connected to Brighton & Hove Albion.
Roberto has implemented a very clear style since his arrival at the club, meaning they have been able to continue in the same manner despite losing a number of players in the summer and reinvesting in some talented players.
We know of the threat they pose but our approach remains the same - we want to impose ourselves and take the game on. While every game is different, we must apply the same mentality to the one that saw us win at the Amex Stadium at the back end of last season.
With Remembrance Day just around the corner, today we will also pay respect to our heroes from the Armed Forces and Merchant Navy, which, as always, is an extremely important date in the football calendar.
I had the privilege to meet members of our Tri-Service Toffees supporters’ club earlier in the week and it was an honour to hear their stories and learn about their roles. We should never forget the sacrifices all services personnel – both past and present - make for our freedom.
Enjoy the game.
Sean
