Marco Silva on Spurs/VAR

Marco Silva praised his teams spirit for the manner in which they responded to equalise against 10-men Spurs in Sunday’s 1-1 draw and believes Everton deserved more than Spurs.

In a game riddled with contentious refereeing from Martin Atkinson and VAR interruptions, although Marco Silva queried the length of the VAR stoppages, he believes the club need to respect the decisions.

Speaking to Sky Sports, Marco Silva said: “We showed fantastic team spirit. If you can talk about the game, because it’s the most important thing even if this afternoon was really tough to play because of many, many stops which didn’t help the game at all.

“I think we deserved a little bit more. Second half we were more balanced and had more of the ball. One mistake, one counter attack, maybe the only time they got near our box they scored. When you make those mistakes it’s always a problem.

“We reacted and showed that spirit to come back to score”.

On VAR, Silva said: “It’s really tough. It’s difficult for me to talk about. I already saw the moments. I saw the moments they stopped the game. I’m 100% sure about what happened there. I don’t have doubts because I saw on TV. Not just the handball, all the moments. I don’t have doubts, not one. I don’t know why they stopped for 2 or 3 minutes to see things and how they decided how they decided – it’s really tough for me to talk, but it’s tough for the referee as well. We as a club have to keep really strong to respect the decisions and me as a manager it’s something I pass on to my players as well. It’s not easy for us but we have to do that. To respect the football we have to respect the decisions, referees and the VAR as well”.

On whether he believed Everton are on the right track, Marco Silva admitted he wasn’t happy with the results but said “We have to look for everything, we lost out last away game like we didn’t win tonight. Some things happened with our team that are not normal but the reaction we showed last Tuesday here in a different competition and the second half this evening again against a tough team, a team that didnt win away this season yet. This team [Tottenham] when they play against Everton create many, many problems I have to tell you, Everton didn’t win one game since 2011 against Tottenham. I have to be clear about the situation. This evening we have tried and I think we deserved more than them.”