Steven Gerrard has explained that his Aston Villa side were ready for a 'war' when they took on Everton at Goodison Park on Saturday.
Villa came away from Merseyside with a 1-0 win thanks to a first-half header from Emiliano Buendia, latching onto a corner from the returning Lucas Digne at the near post.
Everton attempted to rally in the second half and produced some chances on goal but couldn't find the equaliser under caretaker boss Duncan Ferguson.
Speaking after the match, Gerrard admitted he knew what was coming from Everton under Ferguson and felt his side dealt well with the style of play the contest eventually fell into.
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The Villa boss told his post-match press conference: "We were challenged by Everton, who went direct for the majority of the game. It was about rolling your sleeves up and standing up to be counted.
"It was important in the opening 15 or 20 minutes that we showed the crowd here that if Everton wanted a war and if they wanted a fight we were all-in and we were prepared to adapt and prepared to play that style of game.
"There's different ways to win football matches and, of course, there's an ideal way of playing this lovely game with style and control but, coming here to Goodison today, we knew collectively we would have had to show a different side to us.
"In football there's different ways to win, but if you're not prepared to compete, especially away at Goodison, you'll be found out.
"We expected Duncan to pour more fuel on the fire in the second half. We played big today and I'm really proud of the players.
"This performance was about grit, about steel. I asked the players to really commit because this game was going to ask us something quite alien, which is to defend long balls constantly and that's what we did."
