Everton boss Carlo Ancelotti is at a loss to explain the Toffees poor run of recent form.

He admitted the team lacked "a fighting spirit which is in the club's DNA" and added, "It's difficult to say why".

"First of all, we didn't have a lot of time to recover properly from games against Tottenham, Southampton and Wolves, and secondly, we lost a bit of fighting spirit. It was really quite difficult to reach Europe, maybe the players lost a bit of motivation and concentration."

But on the response, he added: "The players have been here for more time than me so they know what the fans expect from them. I don't have to spend time explaining what the fans want to see here at Everton, they know really well and I hope they can show that really well in the next few games."

"We didn't put a time for this [European football]," said the Italian, who took charge in December.

"This season didn't start well for Everton, we were close to the bottom of the table in December, we had a dream to reach Europe but the last results were not good.

"This doesn't change the plan, the target has to be Europe. It's not a disappointment we don't reach Europe in this period, because the priority when I arrived was different, to be safe as soon as possible."