Following a 2-1 away win over Crystal Palace, the Scot acknowledged the margin of safety that the Toffees find themselves in and the ambition that they can now harbour.
The victory at Selhurst Park, clinched by a late Charly Alcaraz goal – his first for Everton, capped off a dream week for the Toffees. As euphoric as THAT Merseyside Derby and THAT Tarkowksi goal might have been, the midweek battle at Goodison Park had taken a toll on the players. To still go out and compete and secure the three points in a tricky away fixture, shows exactly why there’s an unabashed sense of excitement associated with this side.
“If you’d given me four points this week, I’d have snapped your hand off for it. I thought Wednesday’s game took enormous amounts out of the players. I thought it was difficult for a few of them to get going quick enough and we were playing against a resurgent Crystal Palace at the moment so, look, it was a great result, it really was,” said Moyes.
Stop and think for a moment about all the players that Everton are also missing. Iliman Ndiaye became the latest to join the treatment room, taking the tally of players out injured to eight. “We’ve not got a big squad at the moment, we’re really short of players but I think the ones who are playing are certainly standing up and being counted.”
Two players who best justify that statement are the ones who got on the scoresheet for Everton last night. Beto has been scoring goals for fun in the absence of strikers Dominic Calvert-Lewin, Armando Broja and Chermiti while new signing Alcaraz has shown sparks of brilliance in the middle of the park.
“Yeah, I thought Charly did well. I thought he got tired in the second half and maybe 10-15 minutes before we took him off, we thought he was fading a little bit. But he kept at it and he got a goal which was monstrous for us, it really was.
“I think Beto’s taken his opportunity brilliantly well in the goals that he’s scored, and the way he’s playing. He’s beginning to do a lot of things better and hopefully, he can keep improving and keep getting better because we’re going to need it.”
However, despite securing all three points, Moyes has reservations about the poor first-half display from his side. The players looked sluggish and slow to react to situations and the manager had a go at the players during the half-time team talk.
“I didn’t like our performance in the first half, even though we were 1-0 up. I thought we could have played much better and done a lot of things better. We missed so many tackles and challenges, which led to giving them opportunities.
“And then we came out and we conceded a goal pretty much from the kick-off. I thought, ‘I hope it’s not going to be one of these days’, but we stuck at it and we did play better. I thought we played better in the second half – we were better with the ball and overall there was just a much better performance,” the manager added.
Fans will be the first to say that this Everton run feels like a dream and they don’t wanna wake up but the room for growth is hard to miss. While the re-integration of players who are out through injuries is one of the injections for depth and improvement, Moyes also highlighted that he’s pushing the side to get better at the fundamentals – creating chances and scoring goals.
“Well, that’s the thing I want to do, I want us to get better – playing better, scoring more goals, making more chances – that’s what I’m really pushing for now. We’ve still got a bit to do to be safe in the Premier League, but it’s certainly looking a lot rosier. It’s beginning to look that our new stadium will be getting used for Premier League games. But we can’t talk too much about it until we get it done.”