Silva & Changes in Philosophy

Everton manager Marco Silva is adamant that he can change his philosophy if needed.

The Toffees had been criticised for their lack of consistency earlier on in the season, but that looks to be behind the team going into their match with Burnley on Friday night.

In their last six matches, Everton have won four, and have also taken 17 points from their last 10 games to sit ninth in the Premier League table.
Silva has maintained the same 4-2-3-1 formation through the season, but has tinkered with the style of football being played, along with the personnel in his team.

"I don't have problems changing [my philosophy] if I feel that will be the best way to achieve what we want - no problem at all,” Silva told Sky Sports about his change in tactics.

"I have in my mind that I want to improve every day, I have to analyse if I want to achieve this. I have to give all the solutions and feedback to my players if we want to improve.

"We have changed some things. Small details every single week, and by giving small updates to our players, we can keep improving.

"But changing everything from the first day of the season, of course, doesn't make sense. In the two months around December and January, the players felt what was playing against us were small details on many occasions.

"With full focus and the full commitment and, of course, with good results, everything can change fast.

"We've achieved that in important matches at Goodison, and that changed the atmosphere and changed the connection with our fans, which we had lost since the start of the season.

"We have reached that strong level again. We dropped our levels after September and October, and we've changed some things to get our levels back, but we've not changed a lot, as that wouldn't make sense."

At the start of the season, Silva relied up Gylfi Sigurdsson’s dynamic passing and the pace of Richarlison and Theo Walcott when attacking, while defensively, the strategy was to press the passing lanes, and snatch the ball mid-pass.

But, while Silva’s formation has not changed, the style of play has, with full-back Lucas Digne, who has been involved in eight goals this season, being allowed to come forward, while Bernard now occupies Walcott’s position on the flank and Dominic Calvert-Lewin takes up the sole striker role, bagging six goals and a couple of assists in 17 starts.