Roberto Martinez has praised his side’s collective performance as they beat Young Boys 4-1 in the first leg of their Europa League last-32 tie at the Stade de Suisse.
Romelu Lukaku scored three, whilst Seamus Coleman also netted to secure a superb away win for Martinez’s Everton side and the Spanish boss has heaped praise on his side for their team performance.
“I think we knew it was going to be a really exciting game of football because the way Young Boys set-up and try to play is fantastic,” explained Martinez. “We knew it was going to be an open game, but, from our point of view, we are delighted with the reaction we gave.
“When you come away from home and concede the first goal, it can becomes a big mountain to climb and a big test of character.
“I thought we were incredible with the way that we showed responsibility, we wanted to get on the ball and some of the attacking play was electric.
“The amount of chances we created was testament to the performance because Young Boys have a fantastic home record for a reason.”
Lukaku become only the fourth player in the club’s history to score a hat-trick in European competition and Martinez reserved special praise for the former Chelsea striker.
He added: “I’ve always said Rom is quite unique because you don’t get many players with that pace and power.
“He is a great target in our build-up play, but then in the same manner when the game was stretched tonight, his penetration, his desire to get on the end of things and then three clinical finishes spoke was huge for us. He deserved his hat-trick and he also had two or three more good opportunities to perhaps get more.
“Overall, I felt it was an incredible team performance, especially after going down to 10 men – which was the only negative that we had, but even then, John Stones will learn massively from tonight.