Reaction: Important to stay humble, says Hurzeler

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Head coach Fabian Hurzeler enjoyed the perfect start as Albion's head coach with a 3-0 win at Everton.

2024-08-17T18:15+01:00

Fabian Hurzeler acknowledges the Albion fans at full-time after our 3-0 win.

That couldn't have gone much better, could it?

It was a good result. It was a tough game, especially the first minutes. It was really intense and in some moments we suffered, but we suffered together and we defended quite well. And then after a period of time we controlled the game and had ball possession.

A clean sheet is so important to win games in the Premier League. Everyone was responsible to defend our own box and that showed the attitude and the character of the players. So I'm very happy for them. It was a good start, nothing more, and now we try to keep working. It’s very important to stay humble after a win like this.

On a personal level, how does it feel for you to start off your time in charge like that?

It’s a very good feeling but I don't want to talk about myself so much. I think the players deserve this win. I think the club and the staff deserved this win because they worked hard in preseason. I’m very proud of them and very happy for them.

Joel Veltman leads the celebrations at full-time at Goodison Park.

You must be delighted with the competition for places in the squad and the quality of your offensive players?

You always have to make hard decisions. Who starts? Who's in the squad? But I'm very happy that we have this competition because they demand from each other to be the best in training and in the end who trains well will play.

If they work against the ball like they did today, then I'm happier because I always know that we have the quality to score, it's very positive. Yankuba Minteh had to go off and he was disappointed but we can’t take any risks and that’s why we made this decision because the health of the player is always more important than any win or the game. I'm quite confident that he will be back next week.

But yes, he made a good impact in the game. I saw it in preseason and every day in training. If you work hard and try to improve every day it will pay off. I wasn't surprised that he had this performance because I saw him in preseason and that's just a confirmation of his performance.