As he celebrated his 48th birthday on the touchline, Eddie Howe was treat to the best possible gift the team could offer him, as we smashed Everton 4-1 at the Hill Dickinson Stadium.
Coming into today’s game off the back of that painful loss to Marseille midweek, a statement performance was needed from the squad to end our torrid run of form away from home.
And that’s exactly what we saw unfold from the very first minute, quite literally. A Malick Thiaw brace, which included the fastest goal scored in the league this season, either side of Lewis Miley and Nick Woltemade both finding the back of the net saw us finally get three points on the road.
Here’s what Howe had to say after Saturday night’s big win on Merseyside…
Eddie Howe was just like the rest of us after the game, beaming with joy and relief after we finally recorded a win on the road.
“I’m very grateful for the players, because it means I’m not asked so many questions about the away form!”, he said in a birthday win for the boss.
But the gaffer has remained focused on a big December ahead, and he’ll be hoping that this win against Everton could be a catalyst for a great run of form, just like what we had around this time last season.
“Today was a big step forward, I thought the players played really well. It was a good performance, we’re delighted, we know we can do more and we’re heading in the right direction again which is hugely important.”
“We had a game plan based on our opponents and ourselves, trying to tweak things away from home to produce better results, I think it helped us to a degree.”
“But you’re always reliant on the players playing well, and I think individually we were much better today: I thought we looked sharp and fresh for the changes as well.”
With Nick Pope absent through injury, Aaron Ramsdale came in and delivered steady performance, which could give Howe a big headache once Pope is back to full fitness. Discussing his display, the boss said:
“They’ve got different strengths. Aaron showed his quality today and distributed the ball very well.
“What he had to do he handled well. I don’t think he could have done much for the goal.”
Besides the Champions League trip to Belgium when we beat Union Saint-Gilloise, we’ve unfortunately struggled away from St James’ Park this season.
So it makes tonight’s win at a difficult ground against a notorious bogey team in Everton even better, and it’s a going to provide some much-needed momentum ahead of the upcoming games against Spurs and Chelsea at home.
“We’ve got a lot of work to do, obviously, to consistently say that we’ve solved some of the issues that we’ve had, but it’s a step forward and that’s a big moment for us, confidence-wise.”
“For the general feeling, back-to-back wins in the Premier League, that will help us to no end. Now we have two home games that we need to try and capitalise.”
There were six changes to the starting XI that played at the Stade Velodrome on Tuesday night, and some big calls were made by Howe in the name of form and fitness.
And it paid dividends. Lewis Miley produced his best performance of the season and put one past Jordan Pickford, Dan Burn looked a lot more comfortable in his natural centre-back slot, and Anthony Elanga finally ended his own wait for a Premier League contribution since his big summer move.
“We made changes because I wanted no fatigue on the pitch. I didn’t want the feeling that I had after the Brentford game, the West Ham game, where I felt we were tired and lethargic.”
“So, with that in mind, I think we have to trust the squad and use the squad. They repaid that faith.”
“The players that came in, I thought, were excellent. The players that remained from the previous games did well too. I thought we had a good look about us. I thought we had our athleticism and pace in the right areas of the pitch.”
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