Ronald Koeman admits he still has a strong bond with his Everton squad: 'I do not have any reason to doubt my connection with the players'

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Ronald Koeman insists his bond with his squad remains strong as he explained how past experience is enabling him to retain perspective.

Everton’s manager has had to remind senior players of their responsibilities to help the club arrest their poor sequence of results. A 3-0 win over Sunderland in the Carabao Cup on Wednesday brought some respite but Koeman knows the spotlight will stay on him until his team are out of the relegation zone.

Koeman endured difficult spells at previous clubs and while this one has stretched his patience, he maintains it can’t be compared to the calamity he endured at Valencia when he was sacked after six months in 2008.

Ronald Koeman's Everton side currently sit 18th in the Premier League after five matches

‘You can’t compare Valencia with Everton or Southampton or Benfica or PSV because that was really difficult,’ said Koeman. ‘It was a revolution with a new stadium that was not built and still isn’t finished I believe. It was the wrong club at the wrong time.

‘But even when it is a negative period it is a learning point. That is OK and no problem now. It was a bad experience but even a bad experience can be good for the future. The most important thing is the connection with the players. If you feel you still have that good connection with the players and you think they are committed then that is the key point.

‘The rest is all about decisions that don’t belong to the manager.’

Koeman, whose side face Bournemouth on Saturday, added: ‘I don’t have any reason to doubt my connection with the players at Everton.’

Everton have picked up just four points from their first five top-flight games of the new season

Koeman, meanwhile, has no doubt forward Dominic Calvert-Lewin is taking ‘big steps’. Having been brought into the starting XI for the Sunderland game, the 20-year-old shone brightly, scoring twice as well as hitting the post.

Calvert-Lewin, who has four Everton goals in total, made headlines over the summer as he scored the winner for England in the Under 20s World Cup final.

And this week he was nominated alongside the likes of Kylian Mbappe and Ousmane Dembele for the 2017 Golden Boy award, given to the player aged under 21 deemed the most impressive in Europe during the calendar year. Koeman feels the man signed in August 2016 from Sheffield United needs to improve ‘in most aspects’ but rates him as ‘really a big talent’. Asked how good he felt Calvert-Lewin could be, the Dutchman said: ‘That’s all about the future. I think he’s making big steps at the moment, and nobody knows where it will end.

Koeman has sung the praises of youngster Dominic Calvert-Lewin, calling him a 'big talent' 

‘In most aspects of football I think he needs to improve — in holding the ball, in his movements. He can be more clinical.

‘But if you are looking at other strikers of his age, he is really a big talent. He’s strong, he’s fast, and he showed (against Sunderland) he can score goals.

‘I think the boy is really disciplined, he’s hard-working and he likes to improve. He’s listening, and if you ask something (of him), with all his commitment he tries to show that.

‘He can play in different positions — he was playing as a nine, but he can also play as an 11, a seven, with two strikers. There’s a lot of possibilities with Dominic in the team.’