Marco Silva has said he has to vindicate Everton’s expensive decision to appoint him as manager, starting with a “must-win” Premier League game at Cardiff City on Tuesday.
Silva met Everton’s majority shareholder Farhad Moshiri during an enforced 17-day break between games for what he claimed were confident talks about their long-term plans.
On Friday it was announced that Everton and Watford had settled a long-running dispute over an alleged unwarranted approach for Silva during his time at Vicarage Road. Watford have received compensation of about £4m for their former manager, who sits four places and seven points beneath them having presided over an abysmal sequence of 10 defeats in 16 games with Everton.
“All managers have to show results and show why the club signed him,” Silva said, when asked whether he was in effect on trial at Everton for the final 11 games of the season. “You have to show the project, and show the idea, but in the end the main thing will be results.
“The club has had four managers in the last 18 months and signed more than 20 players over maybe the last 18-20 months. Forget Marco Silva and the players we signed, it is not about the names; what we have to do is the right things and everyone is working in the club to take the right decisions.”
Silva admits that Everton’s craving for stability cannot be the only factor keeping him in a job when results have been poor since December. Everton need to develop an identity as a team, too.
“It’s not just about stability but, if you have stability with good performances and more confidence in our players, then the good results will come together. Of course we are not happy with the recent form and I am the first one to say that. I understand our fans are not happy with these results. We didn’t given them what they want and also what they deserve.
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“It’s not for me to talk about myself but stability is important. No one wants to have [a different] manager, manager, manager inside 20 months, and 20 players inside 18 months. You have to create something, an identity with our club, and you have to allow for some adaptation for this football, to adapt within our club and also to the Premier League. It is a special club and the players have to feel they can create an identity with our fans also.”
Silva gave his players time off during the recent break before working on “the details” he believes have gone against his team in recent months. He explained: “We must be more competitive in some moments, keep more focus in other moments, be more aggressive and show that desire we showed earlier in the season to go against this bad run we have had in the last two months. Cardiff is a must-win, it is a game to win for sure, and like always I prepare the game to win.”
The Everton manager is in regular communication with Moshiri. While a long break since defeat at Watford might have previously signalled time for managerial change under the billionaire, their latest meeting was upbeat and constructive according to Silva.
“They were good talks,” he said. “I told you I am the first one to understand about the results but we were talking about the present and the future also. He passed to me and for our players the confidence he has in our work and in the players we have. Like me he believes we can achieve the results in the next games.”