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The title on the door to his office at Finch Farm may say differently but Marco Silva has always been a head coach.

Everton would give him the title of manager when he arrived last summer in order to reflect his elevated standing, but Silva made his name by improving players, getting the best out of them and adding to their game.

He coaches.

Silva likes to stand right in the thick of the action at the club's Halewood base during training sessions, he is hands on and though his backroom staff form part of a trusted inner circle, the 42-year-old insists on being as close to the action as possible.

Marcel Brands, the club's director of football, said last week he is “really confident” the Portuguese coach will improve the young players brought to Goodison this summer.

As he did last season, and with players of differing ages, although Moise Kean, Jean-Philippe Gbamin and Alex Iwobi – 19, 23 and 23 respectively – were the names Brands had in his mind.

Iwobi, with 100 Premier League appearances under his belt, is less of a project than Kean or Gbamin who are both new to the league and more in need of Silva's training ground expertise.

Italian striker Kean, Silva says, requires feedback and information “everytime” because though he is exciting the £25m signing is still at the stage of being classed as having raw potential.

Gbamin, more experienced at club and international level, needs to learn that Premier League football is played in the fast lane.

He must “...adapt fast to the pace, the intensity, he has to think faster in the Premier League”, Silva told reporters early on Saturday evening, after which it will be more about a fine tuning of what the midfielder brings – similar to the way Silva helped develop Idrissa Gueye's game.

"If I worked with him and helped him to have a very good season then now is the moment to work with the others and give them the conditions to perform,” Silva said after the draw with Crystal Palace, where Gbamin had an eye-opening debut.

Gueye improvements two fold under Silva

Essentially, he was saying having made Gueye better, he will go about doing the same with the Ivorian who has been thrown in at the deep end since his arrival from Mainz because of injury and suspension.

So how did Silva do it with Gueye? What did he add to his game? Because on the surface it's not that clear.

Sure, the player made a handful more tackles than in his previous best season for Everton and his number of interceptions wasn't too far off his average for campaigns one and two at Goodison.

Gueye would actually lose, as a percentage, more challenges last season than in the other two, his passing accuracy was more or less on par with last term, as were the number of passes he made across the season.

Silva, however, explains that the improvements were two fold: the intent of his passing and his ability to play in a new position.

Gueye left Goodison for Paris Saint Germain last month a more rounded midfield player and was, no doubt, a contributing factor in keeping his transfer fee high.

The Everton manager told the ECHO: “I think we improved some things in Gana. Gana is the best person to talk about that. But, sometimes, last season Gana played in a different role.

"We started with Morgan and him and when Andre started playing we gave a different role to him, more as a positional player, playing as a No6, it is clear.

"It is not a position he normally plays. When he came to Everton normally there was another positional player, him and Tom and, of course, we gave that role to him. He did well.

"He showed clear improvements on the ball, his decisions on the ball, he was playing more forward than before because all of the other things Gana had already – that physical capacity, fast and strong in the challenge, tackles but he is not our player anymore....”

OPTA stats confirm a higher percentage of Gueye's passes were played forward last season compared to the previous campaign and less were backwards.

Gueye wouldn't score under Silva but being asked to play in the more disciplined - “positional” as the manager says – role is not necessarily conducive to making runs into the box.

That, in theory at least, is what Silva is expecting to see from Andre Gomes and Fabian Delph, if and when he begins to utilise his preferred 4-3-3 formation.

Sitting in that system, as the all-important no6, will be Gbamin.

Gbamin's role at Everton

It's a role familiar to him from his time at Mainz but as he's so far found, English football is played at a different pace to the game in Germany.

A potential indicator of those teething problems – and being pressured quicker and harder than before and having to play with sharper thinking - can be seen in his passing accuracy which, after two Premier League appearances, is down at 71.4% while it was above 80% in the Bundesliga last term.

Silva, though, will see that those numbers, and many others, improve for Gbamin who clearly has plenty of promise.

“It is the manager's role, it is my job,” he said.

“I have to improve the football players in my hands. In the meantime we have to win football matches because we are not a club that just develops players, we are a winning football club, you have to win football matches and everything else will follow behind. But to win football matches we have to develop our players well, it is a process.”

It was why Saturday's gritty win over Watford will have been deeply satisfying for the manager.

And what does he make of Brands' confidence in him to develop the new arrivals?

“It means the club believe in the manager they have in charge to develop the players and it is what they saw last season,” he said.

“Even older players are able to improve. Last season we did that with young players and some of the older players also. We sold Gana, he is 29-years-old, and we improved Michael and Gylfi.”

Other improvements underline Silva's methods

Keane's improvements were one of the major success stories of last term while Sigurdsson enjoyed his best ever Premier League season in front of goal.

Among other things, Silva played him in his correct position, and he would share top billing with Richarlison who also scored 13 league goals, significantly better his return from the previous season.

Kurt Zouma would also testify to the manager's methods, playing the best season of his career at Goodison and Silva's influence was part of the reason he wanted to stay.

“With the young players we have to be patient with them and it's not the easiest thing because we want to put them in the squad if you feel they are ready to improve our squad. It is a process with them, you have to be calm with them but demand from them and be ready to give them good ideas.”