Marco Silva Praises 'Fantastic Work' From Everton During 0-0 Draw With Chelsea

Everton manager Marco Silva has praised the performance of his players as they earned a 0-0 draw with Chelsea.

Chelsea had some good chances to score, meaning Everton were sometimes relient on goalkeeper Jordan Pickford to preserve their clean sheet. However, despite all of Chelsea's pressure, Everton looked comfortable throughout and certainly worked hard to earn a point against The Blues.

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Speaking after the match, Silva insisted that his side deserved the draw as they did well against Chelsea's key players. He is quoted by football.london as saying:  "I think we deserved the point. We showed good organisation, what we asked of the players they put on the pitch.

"We knew before the game it would be tough to play them. We had our chances. The second half was different. They had more space and on the ball we could have done better to create chances."

Referee Kevin Friend found himself at the centre of some controversy during the match. Chelsea's Jorginho was only shown a yellow card after a dangerous challenge, whilst both Bernard and Antonio Rudiger were booked after what appeared to be a headbutt from the Everton attacker.

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Both sides also had penalty shouts turned down, but Silva insisted that he did not want to criticise the referee. He said: "It was a tough match for the referee. I didn’t see all the moments, some might say two penalties and some might say not.

"I don’t want to talk about the referee, it was a tough match. We came here to challenge and you come here to achieve three points. We can do better in the future, our goal in the future is to challenge and I think we took a good step"

When pressed about Bernard's clash with Rudiger, Silva said: "Do you think he can get up to that height? Do you think it was anything? Then there was the Jorginho incident."

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Finally, Silva insisted that his players worked incredibly hard to earn their result. He said: "To come here and stop just Hazard it is the first mistake. You have to stop the whole team. 

"Hazard has been the best player in the Premier League this season. But we stopped Jorginho and he is the key man. It was fantastic work by the midfield."