Marco Silva insists there is no sense of panic at Everton despite a poor start to the Premier League season.
Silva’s position has been questioned after back-to-back defeats against Bournemouth and Sheffield United, the latter coming at Goodison Park last weekend to end a run of six straight home league wins.
That left Everton in 14th place in the table with seven points from six games and a visit from defending champions Manchester City to come on Saturday.
“Of course we are not happy,” said Silva. “I am the first one (to not be happy) when I look to the table. But it’s too early to look to the table and to be in panic.
“If we had a good game last home game and achieved those three points, you are talking completely different about the position.
“We know what we are doing, we know what we should improve and, if you improve in those situations, the results will come and, after some games, we’ll see a different position for sure.”
Having begun the season with two clean sheets, Everton have conceded nine goals in their last four games and the two they let in against the Blades were particularly poor.
Silva said: “Of course no one is happy when you concede goals like we have conceded the last few games.
“We changed one or two things if you compare to last season but they are almost the same players that were 13 games with 10 clean sheets, with the fourth best defence in the Premier League last season. We achieved that working hard, improving, learning from the not so good things we did.
“Of course we didn’t expect (this) because we started again in a good spot but suddenly we start conceding some goals, some of them sloppy, but they are already done. We work on that and we are working to become a solid team.”
Silva spoke after last weekend’s defeat about a nervousness in his team, and he is confident that has been addressed ahead of this weekend’s formidable challenge.
“We spoke straight after the match because it’s something we didn’t expect,” he said.
“Of course we come from a bad result against Bournemouth but we were seven months without losing at home. It can happen. We had a bad afternoon, and more the second half than the first. Our second half was not our image.
“But it’s finished. We’ve worked on that, we spoke about that and it’s up to us to change and to react in the next game.”
The arrival of a team who scored eight goals without reply in their last Premier League outing may appear the last thing Everton need but Silva’s side were arguably at their best against the strongest sides last season.
And the Portuguese was keen to point out that the same City side were beaten by Norwich only a week previously.
He said: “We can look for the last Premier League match, or we can look for the last two Premier League matches.
“It’s normal that they have more of this type of results, clear wins with a good number of goals, but in some moments it happens what happened against Norwich.
“We have to analyse them as a whole, the quality they have, not for the results. We know normally they come to start a game really strong, they like to score early for the opposing team to change their behaviour on the pitch.
“It will be a big challenge for us for sure but we want to play this type of challenge and we are ready to play.”
Everton will again be without Jean-Philippe Gbamin and Andre Gomes, who may be ruled out until after the international break with his rib problem.
