The R/Everton Reddit page is abuzz right now with Toffees supporters turning a pundit’s tribute of three first-team stars into praise for Marco Silva.
That pundit is Match of the Day regular Alan Shearer, who included Lucas Digne, Kurt Zouma and Phil Jagielka in his Premier League Team of the Week, following their magnificent efforts to contain – and score – against Arsenal at the weekend.
There were no nods for Richarlison, Gylfi Sigurdsson or Idrissa Gana Gueye, however, despite their stellar importance to our win, with the likes of Jordan Henderson, James Maddison, and Mohamed Salah taking their respective slots.
The fact that Shearer included three of our defenders, though, has led fans to acknowledge the changes Silva has brought about following our turbulent start to 2019.
Having failed to take anything against Wolverhampton Wanderers, Manchester City and Watford in the space of a week in February, March saw the squad thrash Cardiff and hold Liverpool to a point, before we beat Chelsea, West Ham and started April strongly against Arsenal.
Had it not been for a few sloppy errors at St James’ Park, March could even have been a month in which we did not concede a single goal. That is pretty incredible given our defence, and inability to prevent the opposition from scoring at set pieces, was one of the biggest concerns we had of Silva during the difficult times.
His ability to turn it around, though, has seen Shearer’s praise of Digne, Zouma and Jagielka become praise for the boss…
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