James Tarkowski has offered an insight into how Everton prepared for their clash against Bournemouth and revealed why he was always confident his side would not go down.
For the second successive season the Blues narrowly avoided relegation from the top-flight, after beating Gary O’Neil’s side at Goodison Park on Sunday afternoon. Abdoulaye Doucoure's fine second-half strike was the difference between the two sides.
Everton went into the game knowing that a win would be enough to keep them in the Premier League after Leeds United and Leicester City failed to beat West Ham United and Newcastle United the week before.
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Speaking in the build-up to the game, Tarkowski revealed that his boss cut a calm figure at Finch Farm and was walking around the building singing. Now, reflecting on the week following his side’s win, the defender has offered a behind-the-scenes insight into what transpired at the club’s training ground.
"The manager is class at it," he said when asked about how his side prepared for the game. "He really is. He made it feel like a normal week, which I think is quite important.
"He didn’t overdo anything, he just stuck to the game plan. All week we worked on things, and it has been difficult because we have had no full-backs, so Jimmy Garner at right-back and Dwight at left wing-back.
"It was tough to adapt to that, but like I said, he was just trying to make it feel like a normal week, and I would much rather be playing than standing on the sidelines watching, to be honest."
However, at half-time, Dyche’s side were heading to the Sky Bet Championship as Leicester City led West Ham United 1-0 at the King Power. At this point, Everton had to win to avoid the drop.
And Tarkowski has revealed that he and his team-mates were aware of results elsewhere at the break, but he always felt like his side were going to score and win the game.
He said: "I was aware that Leicester were winning, but I always felt that Leicester or Leeds were going to win today, so we needed to do the job ourselves. It was all about us.
"I just knew we would score. I said to the lads at half-time we are going to score at some point. I didn’t know how it was going to be, but I knew we would score.
"As long as we defended our goal well, like we did, we were always going to get over the line."
Reflecting on the season as a whole, the former Burnley man revealed that in a campaign of low points, the lowest of them all came when the Blues were beaten twice by Bournemouth in the space of five days.
He said: "It has been a really difficult season. Some low moments, probably the biggest, were playing these away from home twice in a week and losing 7-1 on aggregate."
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