Carlo Ancelotti believes Abdoulaye Doucoure produced his best Everton performance in Wednesday’s 2-0 win at Leicester City, while also hailing the contributions of Alex Iwobi and Gylfi Sigurdsson in quotes reported by the Toffees’ website.
With James Rodriguez unavailable and Allan limping off before the break, another of Everton’s summer signings stepped up in some style at the King Power.
Doucoure might have made a name for himself as a piercing, box-to-box midfielder at Watford, but it was the Frenchman’s defensive awareness that laid the platform for an impressive away win at one of the Premier League’s top-four hopefuls.
Not only did the £30 million enforcer complete 88 per cent of his passes, he also put out countless fires as Leicester pushed and probed, while denying Jamie Vardy with a superb, last-gasp interception that Allan himself would have been proud of.
“It was his best performance [for Everton]. He was really intelligent defensively, he understood what to do and also with the ball he had some acceleration that were good for our counter-attacks,” Ancelotti said after a result that lifts Everton up to fifth, a point and a place behind Brendan Rodgers’ out-of-sorts Foxes.
Richarlison opened the scoring in the Midlands before Mason Holgate scored his first ever Everton goal following a typically teasing Sigurdsson dead-ball.
“We are really strong at set pieces because the delivery from Sigurdsson is very good and we also have tall players. We knew we could be dangerous because Leicester are not one of the tallest teams,” Ancelotti added, while hailing another energetic Iwobi display.
“It’s [Iwobi’s] best moment since I arrived. He is showing confidence, is really good in one-versus-one situations and is working hard.
“The key is to work hard – the team is working hard. I said to the players that we have to be satisfied for tonight but we have to work and we have to improve.”
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