Roberto Martinez praises 'difficult' Everton win and hails 'elite' Romelu Lukaku
Tuesday 29 September 2015 11:41, UK
Roberto Martinez praised his Everton team for beating West Brom in "the most difficult way" - and hailed the ability of matchwinner Romelu Lukaku.
Martinez was delighted with the character his players showed in coming back from 2-0 down after 53 minutes to win 3-2 and move to fifth in the Premier League table.
Lukaku scored twice against his former club and Arouna Kone was also on target in a five-goal Monday Night Football thriller.
The Everton manager was especially pleased that his side recovered to score three times against a side well drilled by renowned defensive tactician Tony Pulis.
"We showed incredible character to come back and get a win," he said "We all know how difficult it is to come back and win games and you couldn't find a more difficult way to do it after going two goals down to a West Brom side who don't concede goals from open play.
"They have one of the best defensive structures in this league and we had to show a lot of character and a lot of desire to improve because the first-half performance was not anywhere near our level.
"But we never gave up and we found a way to get back into the scoreline. The score three goals in open play speaks volumes of the quality of our performance."
There were few indicators of that quality during a first half in which Saido Berahino scored his second goal in three games to put the Baggies in front.
Craig Dawson doubled the lead shortly after the break but a combination of Lukaku and some well-timed substitutions by Martinez swung the contest in Everton's favour.
"We couldn't get high up the pitch well enough, West Brom were pressing well and we couldn't put our passing together as we normally do," he said.
"We have really good options and Arouna Kone gives us a good option. We took advantage of that confusion. Darron Gibson also enabled us to open up lines of passing and get us higher up the pitch."
Martinez was understandably fulsome in his praise of Lukaku, who he feels can make further improvements still.
"He has an elite brain and you can see when he puts his mind to it he can achieve anything," he said.
"I always said Rom has got that unique strength of being the man the team needs and in the second half it wasn't a coincidence he was the one who scored the goal straight after.
"When you score two goals and you get an assist it's impressive. When you look at the way West Brom defend they are very good in what they do. He had a real desire to get on the end of the crosses and it made a real difference."
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