Roy Hodgson credited Palace players for their season overall despite a frustrating afternoon
Saturday 27 April 2019 18:54, UK
Marco Silva felt Everton had tried everything to win as they drew 0-0 with Crystal Palace, with Roy Hodgson pleased with the effort of his players.
Although the game ended in a stalemate, Everton twice hit the post in the second half and drew a sensational save from Crystal Palace goalkeeper Vicente Guaita as they lacked the cutting edge from last weekend's 4-0 win against Manchester United.
Silva claimed Everton were by far the better side, telling Sky Sports: "I think we tried everything to win the match and we were the best team on the pitch.
"Since the first minute, we dominated all the game in our offensive parts. We created chances, we had two shots off the post, there was a fantastic save from the goalkeeper, maybe 10 or 11 corners also. We did more than enough to win the match, it's just that we were not clinical.
"It is clear to me, when you come here to play against Crystal Palace, who are in a good moment, they are really strong in their counter-attack and we gave nothing for them to put on the pitch. After they created the counter-attack, we had a good balance and then we created enough chances to score.
"We dominated the game. I told our players that we tried everything and we just didn't put the ball in the net because we did everything well until that moment.
"We are improving, there are no doubts about that. I don't want to talk about next season because we have two games to play and things to keep improving, things to keep showing - good football and giving points for our fans is everything that we want.
"Our focus now is against Burnley next Friday, which will be tough. It will be the last game of the season with our fans and we want to give them the three points."
Palace manager Hodgson admitted there was a frustration with the way his team played, but he was pleased with their application and their results in recent weeks.
"It's a little bit frustrating because we would like to have played better, we would have liked Everton to play worse, we would liked to have had more controlled possession than we were able to get and we would have liked our passing to be better than it was today," he told Sky Sports.
"But that's not because we are a poor passing team, it was because today we couldn't hit the heights in that area of the game. But I must give the players a lot of credit for sticking in the game. There were long periods when we looked like we were going to be under pressure, concede and lose the game.
"I thought they showed a lot of character, a lot of diligence and a lot of determination to make sure that we came away with at least a point, which is a lot better than the defeat we suffered at Everton with two really late goals. But I believe we played better football than we did today.
"I think, at this stage of the season, I have to be more than happy with our last four games, with wins at Newcastle and Arsenal, a home draw with Everton, who are a very good team and a defeat against Man City, where we gave a pretty decent account of ourselves.
"So I've got to be very happy with that and, furthermore, the players have worked their socks off all season. We've had some unfortunate injuries to contend with in these latter games yet here we are, still picking up points and still trying to force our way up the table, so hats off to the players.
"We're disappointed that we couldn't give a really good performance for the crowd after last week, but I'm sure they're happy and looking forward to another Premier League season and hoping that when we get some of our players back, we'll be able to play even better than we did today."
