Wayne Rooney admitted he had to fight to keep a lid on his emotions on his return to Goodison Park.
Rooney shone as Everton laboured to victory thanks to Leighton Baines’ deflected goal, and the striker wants to focus on his football after coming through a highly-charged 90 minutes.
He said: “I think I’ve said everything in the last few weeks, but obviously it was great to be out at Goodison in a blue shirt again. It was a great feeling.
“This was an important game for us and I had to put my emotions to one side and thankfully I’ve done that again.
“Now I can get down more to focusing on the football over the coming weeks.”
Rooney was not downhearted by Everton’s undercooked display and is confident they will improve in next Thursday’s return with after another week’s pre-season training.
“It’s still very early in our pre-season, it was a first 90 minutes for a lot of us, but we got the win and the clean sheet,” he said. “We know we can play better.”
Blues boss Ronald Koeman was pleased with Rooney’s display on his second debut for Everton following his switch from Manchester United.
“Overall he was good, he was positive,” said Koeman. “You would like to create a little bit more, but we worked hard and kept a clean sheet.
“In European football, 1-0 with a clean sheet is a good result.
“That’s a lot of positives after four weeks of pre-season. With one more week of training, it will be a different game. They will have to do more than they did tonight, they will have to come forward more, and that will make it a different game for us.”