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Alex Iwobi reflects on Everton's comprehensive 3-0 victory over Crystal Palace and his player-of-the-match display...
I feel Saturday’s win was a real team performance. Everyone played their part.We’d had a tough run of results but we were back at Goodison – back at our home – and it was a great way to bounce back, with three goals and three points.
On a personal level, I am playing with a lot of confidence.The manager tells me, ‘Play the way you train’. You can see I’m very confident and I’m able to express myself on the pitch. For our third goal, I was able to do that with a cheeky little flick!I saw Dwight McNeil running with the ball and then Neal [Maupay] make a first run. I made a second run, Dwight spotted me, and I could see him continuing his run, so I played it into his path. It looked like a great goal, but I have to give credit to Dwight.The manager gives me so much belief and, when I have confidence and motivation on the pitch, I feel I’m almost unstoppable.
There were a lot of positives from Saturday’s win, and it was great to see Dom Calvert-Lewin get his first goal of the season. For the goal he scored, you have to give credit to him, because he worked hard to get the ball back at first, and then the composure of his first touch was just amazing. I still get the assist for it, but I don’t know how, because Dom's first touch was crazy! Then, for him to slot it into the net with the coolness he showed… We know he’s capable of doing that because he shows it in training every day. It’s nice he’s back, getting his minutes, and he deserves that goal.
With our second goal, hopefully it’s a contender for goal of the season, because it was great play from everyone.
It started all the way back with Jordan [Pickford] and everyone was playing one and two-touch football. It was a great team goal and it’s something we’ve been working on in training. To see that come to life in a game was amazing.
Everyone’s been buying into the manager’s plans. When something comes to life which we do on the training pitch – the patterns of play – you have to commend him and say, ‘Thank you for giving us the ideas’. It’s just up to us to put them into action.
My role for the team was to get involved in our attacking patterns and make those triangles on the side [of the pitch]. I had to be disciplined but also attack. Whenever we got the chance, it was about trying to get the ball in the box and hurt them. We did that against West Ham when we won at Goodison recently and we were able to do that again. As I said, I think everyone stepped up. We were able to keep a clean sheet against a very attacking Palace team and the back four played very well. It’s a collective effort. The team defends well and the team scores.
Now, we have to keep this hunger and this motivation. It’s another test away at Fulham next weekend and we’ll go again.
