Marco Silva says Everton were 'too nervous' in defeat to Leicester

Marco Silva says Everton were "too nervous" as they lost 1-0 to Leicester on New Year's Day, but added there was no reason for it.

Everton's bad run of form continued as Jamie Vardy's 58th-minute strike handed Leicester the victory, with the Toffees having now won just one of their last eight league fixtures.

• Match report
• As it happened

Silva was critical of his side, calling it a "poor performance" and adding they were too nervous, although could not give an excuse as to why.

He told Sky Sports: "It was a disappointing result and a poor performance to be honest. We always have to be honest and we have to look clearly at the game and analyse the match calmly and to pass the feedback back to our boys.

"It was poor from the first minute and we knew before the match what they came here to do. It is easy to understand, like they started the game they were playing 4-5-1, blocking the space and waiting for our mistakes. In the first half, we were in control and every time we had the ball and wanted to start something, we were too nervous without reason.

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"Of course, when you're playing that way, it is easy to lose easy passes and easy combinations and every time we win the ball and start to organise our attack, we lose. We tried, we lose and then the game gets a little bit confused. When you are so anxious in the game, after comes the easy mistakes like we made.

"For the goal, we conceded a counter-attack with Jamie Vardy with a normal ball that is normal to control because we didn't handle the normal pressure in a normal football game this afternoon. We will find the reasons for that but it was a poor performance from our squad today.

"If you look at our last few results, they haven't been consistent but there is no reason to be so anxious and so nervous. Even at the start of the match and in many moments, the fans were behind us and there is no reason for the nerves.

"When you play at this level for a club like Everton, you have to show your capacity every week to handle this normal pressure. You have to play to win football matches which is a fantastic pressure for each professional and you have to handle it."

Everton's recent run of poor results started when they lost 1-0 to Liverpool in the Merseyside derby on December 2, but Silva is adamant the two are not related.

He added: "It doesn't make sense if you can link one thing with the other because that is one game and we had a fantastic run up until that moment when we played in the derby.

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"It is impossible to link what we did today to what happened in that game. I know the results after that wasn't what we wanted and what we worked to achieve but I don't link one thing with the other.

"That game was finished one month ago and we have a lot of games to play and it doesn't make sense if that game keeps making an impact on our squad until now."

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