MATCH REPORT : EVERTON 2 WEST HAM UNITED 0

Everton eased Marco Silva worries with a very comfortable 2-0 home win against West Ham United . The Portuguese manager’s job looks a lot safer now after his side inflicted a first away defeat of the season on West Ham and climbed out of the bottom three by doing so.

Silva made five changes to his starting line up from the 0-1 defeat at Burnley and was rewarded by his team passing the ball quickly, moving into space and putting pressure on the visitors’ defence from the outset. If there was one criticism of Silva’s Everton it was that their decision-making in the final third was not as impressive as the application and appetite they showed in the rest of their play.

Bernard scored the opening goal early in the first half, running on to Theo Walcott’s cleverly disguised pass and appearing to take the wrong option in declining to take a first-time shot, only to outwit Arthur Masuaku and then goalkeeper Roberto to find the net from an acute angle.

West Ham could not have any complaints; they should have been behind 10 minutes earlier when a corner found its way to Tom Davies at the far post but his poor finish allowed Roberto to make an improbable close range save.

Everton attacked time and time again down the left through Bernard and Lucas Digne, only to run out of ideas on the edge of the West Ham penalty area. Richarlison hit a post but shots from Walcott and Alex Iwobi were from too far out to cause Roberto any real problems.

Everton started the second half in the same manner and thought they had doubled their lead after a crisp finish by Richarlison but the goal was ruled out by an offside flag. Walcott then hit the bar from 25 yards with a blistering drive and Yerry Mina saw a couple of headers from corners saved and had a perfectly good goal disallowed by referee Tierney much to the surprise of everybody in the stadium bar Tierney himself. Alex Iwobi missed a glorious chance to seal victory after excellent work by André Gomes and Djibril Sidibé, who ghosted unchallenged into the area but put his shot far too close to Roberto.

West Ham who were poor for the majority of the game almost grabbed an unlikely equaliser through Angelo Ogbonna but after a quiet afternoon Jordan Pickford’s reflexes were still up to keeping out a close-range effort from the Italian in what amounted to the visitors’ best chance.

Everton introduced Gylfi Sigurdsson and he almost scored with his first touch but he brought an excellent save from Roberto to keep out the Icelandic man’s crisp drive. However, Sigurdsson did beat Roberto with a glorious shot from outside the area that fizzed into the top corner after leaving Jack Wilshere in a heap following a clever turn in added time. It was only what Everton deserved and only then could Marco Silva relax in the knowledge that his team had earned the victory that they so richly deserved.

The Blues boss was clearly delighted with his team’s performance but was critical that they had passed up the opportunity to win the game by a bigger margin. Silva said :

“We should have scored more goals, but it is important to talk about the way we played. Pressure is normal in football, whether you are winning or losing. Our last few results were not good enough, so we had to react. We controlled the game and created a lot of chances. It was good to see.”

West Ham boss Manuel Pellegrini could not disagree with Silva’s assessment of the game.

“They played better than we did, Everton gave more than 100%, while we were not at our best.”