David Moyes praised Riccardo Calafiori and David Raya in the aftermath of his side’s 2-0 loss to Arsenal at the Emirates Stadium.
Both Calafiori and Raya had “unbelievable moments” that prevented the Blues from scoring. Moyes’s side were also holding their own and put up a dogged defensive performance before suffering a late heartbreak.
Viktor Gyokeres and Max Dowman scored twice to protect Arsenal’s advantage in the title race.
Earlier, Calafiori and Raya had denied Everton the opportunity to rattle their net. The Italian defender produced an unbelievable block off Dwight McNeil’s shot while the Spanish goalkeeper was at his best and made several crucial saves to keep his side in the contest.
“The block from Calafiori on Dwight McNeil is unbelievable. And it tells you a little bit about maybe the way Arsenal are. They’re fighting for it, they’re defending their goal with their lives,” Moyes said after the game.
“Probably in the end, I think, Raya made more saves than Jordan Pickford in the game. But the block from Calafiori was amazing.
“And then the one hits the post – the boy shoots and it hits the inside of the post and it comes out when you’re saying: ‘This is going in’. So moments like that didn’t quite go our way.
“But we came, we gave them a good go, it was just not good enough.”
Despite the loss, there were a lot of positives about Everton’s display away from home. Missing Jarrad Branthwaite and James Tarkowski, the Toffees were disciplined in their defensive setup and barely allowed Arsenal any clear cut chances until the double whammy at the end. The likes of Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall, Beto and McNeil also had chances to score.
“I said to the players at half-time: ‘This is okay, but if we’re really going to get [the press] talking about us and putting us as headliners, then we’re going to have to win and we’re going to have to find a way of at least coming away from here with something.’ In the end, we weren’t able to do that,” he added.