Pressure piles on Marco Silva ahead of Man City clash with only one in five Everton fans behind him

THE pressure is piling on Marco Silva ahead of tonight’s clash with Manchester City with just one in five Everton fans behind him, an exclusive Sun Sport poll can reveal.

Silva’s popularity has plummeted following a disastrous run of results that has seen the Toffees crash out of the FA Cup to Championship strugglers Millwall and slip to ninth in the table.

They were hammered at home to Spurs over Christmas and have stuttered ever since, with further defeats against Brighton, Leicester and Southampton.

Saturday’s embarrassing 3-1 home loss to Wolves appears to have been the last straw for a large part of the Goodison Park faithful, who appear to be turning their backs.

The Portuguese boss, 41, was enjoying strong support in November when the club were sitting in sixth, with 72 per cent of fans thinking he was doing an excellent job.

But the percentage of supporters who are satisfied with the former Watford gaffer now stands at just 23 per cent following the Wolves debacle.

Everton host Pep Guardiola’s team tonight and will be hoping City will have another case of the Wednesday wobbles.

After that they travel to Watford and Cardiff, followed by a derby at home to title-chasing Liverpool.

While fans appear to be losing patience with Silva, Everton majority owner Farhad Moshiri has given him the dreaded vote of confidence.

Moshi has already seen off Roberto Martinez, Ronald Koeman and Sam Allardyce since taking over three years ago.

But he has no plans to ditch a fourth manager after only appointing Silva in the summer.

He said yesterday: “Marco’s a talented coach but he’s planning long-term. He will coach and develop our young players and every year those players will become stronger.

“The Everton fans quite rightly demand young football. We want young players to develop, they need to play. It’s a project.”

Silva himself seems to be relaxed about his future ahead of tonight’s game.

He said: “I am always in contact with Moshiri. I know his feelings and his project.We took a decision to make young players part of our squad at the start of the season.

“This is one decision we took as a club — we didn’t attack the January market because we took that decision.”

It seems Silva cannot win though – with some Everton fans calling for him to be sacked tonight if their team wins as it will give hated rivals Liverpool a huge boost in the title race.

But the under-fire Everton boss insisted he is not interested in the top of the table.

He added: “It is not for us to look to that title fight. We know what is our fight. There are many games to play. Nothing will be decided in our game against City.

“We have to be more aggressive. And when we look at this fixture what we cannot be is scared — but we have to stop making mistakes.”