Moyes takes positives from a narrow loss

Sep 17 2007 by Ian Doyle, Liverpool Daily Post

Everton FC Manager, David Moyes _158

DAVID MOYES has told his players to take heart from their performance despite losing to Manchester United at the weekend.

The champions scraped a rather fortuitous 1-0 win at Goodison thanks to Nemanja Vidic’s header seven minutes from time.

United rarely threatened the home side, who were unlucky not to go ahead shortly after the break when Paul Scholes headed Andrew Johnson’s effort off the line.

Scholes had earlier been the centre of controversy when referee Alan Wiley failed to show the midfielder a second yellow card following a rash tackle on Mikel Arteta.

Moyes, though, chose to focus on the positives of his team’s performance and said: “I am not disappointed with the way we played. We lost a goal to a set piece and I have told the players I am not disappointed with their showing – just the result.

“We didn’t deserve to lose. I didn’t think much went for us, and some of the decisions went against us.

“Paul Scholes, on another day, could have been a sending off and he ends up clearing one off the line. Small things which might have helped us, they didn’t go for us.

“The team did fine. We were a little bit short of personnel and that showed at times, but we are getting better. Even Sir Alex has said that we were a bit unlucky not to get something out of the game.

“We scored a late goal against Bolton the other week, and now we’ve conceded one. It happens in football. It was just one of those days – we never got the ball to fall nicely for us.”

Tim Howard’s failure to recover from his dislocated finger meant a debut for Stefan Wessels in goal.

And the German, formerly of Bayern Munich and Cologne, said: “When I heard that Tim was injured and might not play, I was focused on this game.

“I enjoyed myself, you can’t have a better debut than against Manchester United.

“I was excited before the game, but as soon as I got on the pitch I can deal with it. It’s not new for me to play in big games like this.

“I would have liked to have had a clean sheet but it was frustrating to concede so late on.”

Speaking to evertonTV, Wessels added: “A draw would have been a fair result. There weren’t many chances on either side.

“The speed and aggression of the English league is different to the Bundesliga. And the atmosphere in the ground, you could feel that it was a local derby game.”