Alex Iwobi reacts to his Everton debut, shares what Silva told him before going on

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Everton lost 2-0 away at Aston Villa on Friday night.

Everton new boy Alex Iwobi has told the Liverpool Echo that Marco Silva wanted him to play wherever he felt comfortable against Aston Villa.

The Toffees travelled down to Villa Park on Friday evening, and were looking to build on four points from two games against a side who had yet to pick up a point.

However, Silva’s side came unstuck at Villa Park, as Wesley sneaked into finish past Jordan Pickford in the first half to open the scoring.

Everton pushed for a leveller, introducing new signings Moise Kean and Iwobi as substitutes, and Kean set up Theo Walcott for a great chance, only for him to squander it.

Villa then hit Everton on the break late on, with Anwar El Ghazi skipping past Andre Gomes to finish underneath Pickford and seal a 2-0 win.

Silva now has plenty to think about after that defeat, and he may now have to consider starting Kean and Iwobi when they face Wolverhampton Wanderers next weekend.

Iwobi has now shared what Silva told him before being subbed on against Villa, and that was to do whatever he felt comfortable with in terms of playing on the left, whether that was staying wide or cutting infield.

That was mostly because of the 4-4-2 setup at the time, but may offer an indication that Silva sees Iwobi as a real threat both inside and outside of his full-back moving forward.

Iwobi added that he thought he did ‘ok’ against Villa and created chances, but it wasn’t the debut he was looking for as Villa slipped to a defeat.

“I was actually meant to be on the left but, the manager said, because we were playing 4-4-2 we had to be compact,” Iwobi said. “So he said ‘if you feel you should be out wide, go out wide and if you feel you need to be inside, come inside’. So he basically told me to go where I felt comfortable and I was able to do that. At the end of the day he wanted me to go and get a goal for us to get us back in it. That’s what I tried to do but unfortunately it didn’t happen today.”

“Until the second goal we all thought there was a chance, we kept on creating chances and kept on looking promising but it is just one of those days and if we had played another 90 it wasn’t going to go in. I thought I did ok and created chances for my team but it was not the debut I was after but we have to move on from this,” he added.