Beaming with pride, Tim Donovan stood patiently in the background as Landon was interviewed by the media in the Goodison Park players' tunnel. The American, in the US soccer bomber jacket, had just witnessed why his lad feels such a sense of belonging to The Toffees in a city more than 5,000 miles from home.
Donovan Snr is in town to take in a couple of 'soccer' games. The former semi-professional ice hockey player watched as Landon played a key role in our 4th Round FA Cup win on Friday, and will be there again tomorrow night.
Landon hopes for more of the same tomorrow but accepts that beating a rested and focused Sitteh will be his biggest challenge yet since returning to the Toffees.
A Proud Landon said: 'It's hard to say Manchester City are vulnerable at any point in the season. They're just a very good team and now their goal is very clear. They have one thing to play for and that's to win the Premier League.'
'We fully expect that they've been home resting the last few days, and it's going to take everything we have to get a result. No question.'
'It shows us now a blueprint of what works. We have seen what doesn't work last weekend and over the last few weeks.'
'If we play like we did against Fulham we have a chance to win, and if we have a little bit more quality we can score a few more goals. But that attitude, aggression and willingness to get after it and go for it is something we should always play with.'
'If we do, we have a chance to win every time we step on the field.'
'We spent a lot of time this week talking about, looking at tapes and learning how to have the right attitude and impetus to play the game in the right way," he says. "If you go for it and lose you can look yourself in the mirror and be OK with it. But the last few weeks, to be honest, I don't think we've done that and I'm glad we did it against Fulham and got a reward for it.'
'It's been a frustrating few weeks for the fans too. If they boo or they're hard on us it's because we've deserved it over that time.'
'But we saw on Friday, even when Fulham went a goal up, the attitude was still good and they could see we were trying to play the right way. It makes a big difference and you could feel the energy was a lot better. I'm glad we could do that for them.'
'If David Silva is not the best player in the league right now, he's close.'
'He's a special talent and there's a few guys at this level that can pull off special plays and he's one of them. He's going to be a handful, and if we're going to get anything out of the game we've got to be tactically tight and have high energy levels. We're going to stick to the things that work.'
'Seeing Liverpool advance to the Carling Cup final meant I'm going to miss the derby so I want to play as many games as I can while I'm here, and hopefully I want to be a part of something special in this cup run.'
'There were a couple of games that stood out last time, both night games, against Chelsea and Man City at Goodison. The energy against Fulham was like that. For a player it's really special to play in games like that, it's fun to be a part of. It's special.'
'I think from all of us it's about an attitude. For whatever reason we've just been down a little bit over the last few weeks and it shows on the field when you play. The great thing about that is you have a choice in the matter. You could tell in the locker room before the Fulham game everyone decided we were just going to go for it. If it doesn't work out it doesn't work out.'
Same again please Landon, do it for us and for your Dad!
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