EVERTON 1-0 CARDIFF CITY: REPORT

Gylfi Sigurdsson's second-half strike was enough for Everton as they beat a brave Cardiff City 1-0 at Goodison Park.

The Iceland international broke the deadlock an hour into the game after a rather fortunate rebounded effort from Theo Walcott's initially saved shot.

Everton now move up to sixth in the Premier League with their fourth consecutive victory at Goodison Park.

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HOW IT HAPPENED -

The match started off like many of us would have predicted; with Cardiff happy to let Everton have possession and hit them on the counter-attack.

Andre Gomes came close for the hosts as his shot fired into the side-netting with some sections of the ground thinking it had gone in.

Richarlison had a golden chance for Everton 40 minutes in, when he was found by Sigurdsson, but his free-header was disappointing.

Sigurdsson was found by Bernard in the second-half with a perfect pass - the midfielder then rounded Neil Etheridge but Sol Bamba cleared the ball off the line.

However, the Iceland midfielder wasn't to be denied for too long, as he was the benefiter of an excellent Etheridge save from Walcott's effort and tapped into an empty goal.

Source: FourFourTwo

Cardiff had a late penalty appeal turned down, when Greg Cunningham was brought down by Seamus Coleman, but the referee denied the shouts.

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THE MANAGERS -

Everton manager Marco Silva believes his side completely deserved maximum points after "controlling the match".

"We deserved the three points and controlled the match," Silva claimed. "We tried to play our way but we started slowly and against a strong, defensive team like Cardiff, we need to be faster.

"In the second-half, we gave them more problems and we were mature in the final minutes to get the win."

Cardiff boss Neil Warnock has revealed the only reason his team lost at Goodison Park was down to not being clinical enough.

"They were better than us in the final third but I cannot fault my team's performance," Warnock said.

"We were very well organised but we need to be a bit more clinical. There were some fine margins that went against us and I wasn't happy with two incidents before the goal."