Everton star Abdoulaye Doucoure has revealed what Benitez told the team after the Villa defeat

Rafa Benitez told Everton players that they must keep working after their defeat to Aston Villa, according to Abdoulaye Doucoure.

The Toffees lost their first game of the Benitez era in a second-half collapse against Villa at Villa Park.

The 28-year-old was reflective after the match, and it appears as if the Spaniard wants to see more from his players in the coming games [Liverpool Echo].

Everton

Doucoure said: “I don’t think we controlled the game well after the second goal.

“After the game, the manager said we need to keep working.

“Today was disappointing; conceding the goals [were] bad for us, but in the next game, we have to bounce back and work even harder to get a good result.”

Benitez wants to see more.

Everton were without Jordan Pickford, Dominic Calvert-Lewin, and Richarlison, who are key players, but the collapse in the second half was poor.

The Toffees had controlled the game reasonably well until Villa scored through Matty Cash and everything fell apart for the Toffees.

Clearly, Benitez wants to see more from his players, and they have a game coming up very soon on Tuesday in the Carabao Cup.

This will be the ideal opportunity for the Toffees to forget about last night and progress to the next round of a cup competition.

Everton

The Toffees have not won a trophy since 1995, so the Carabao Cup is certainly a chance to win a trophy and end that drought.

If the Toffees can beat QPR and progress to the next round, then you would think the defeat against Villa could be forgotten about.

However, Benitez will face his first tricky patch as the new Everton boss if they lose.

In other Everton news, Martin Keown has ripped into one Toffees star on MOTD.

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