Moyes pleased as draw curtails team’s travels

Oct 10 2007 by Ian Doyle, Liverpool Daily Post

DELIGHTED David Moyes was relieved Everton had avoided any long-distance travelling following yesterday’s UEFA Cup draw.

The Goodison outfit have been placed in Group A alongside Dutch side AZ Alkmaar, Russia’s Zenit St Petersberg, German team FC Nurnberg and Larissa of Greece.

With each team only playing the others once, the group games are split between two home and two away ties.

And the computerised fixture schedule has favoured Everton who, having trekked to the Ukraine to defeat Metalist Kharkiv in the previous round, will not be asked to make the arduous trips to Russia or Greece. Instead they open the group stage with a home game against Larissa on October 25. It is followed by a trip to Nurnberg on November 8, a home clash with Zenit on December 5 and a final match away in Alkmaar five days before Christmas.

And Moyes in anticipating a huge travelling support for the games in Germany and Holland.

“I’m quite pleased, it’s a decent draw,” said the Everton manager. “And now that the games have come out, we’re not travelling too far and it’s great for the supporters that they’ll be able to get to the games relatively easily.

“To play the Greek team and the Russian team at home is much easier than travelling there. The travel is an issue for the players as well as the supporters, you want to limit the amount of travelling you do. Having a lot of supporters travelling to Holland and Germany will make a difference. It made a difference in Kharkiv, that was fantastic.”

Three of the five teams will qualify for the knockout stage in the new year, and Moyes admits the difficulty posed by Metalist in the first round is an indicator of the standard of opposition Everton can expect next.

“How the games will go? Who knows,” said Moyes. “We were given a massive test by Metalist so you can never say there is an easy game now, and you don’t expect any easy games.

“All the teams in the group stage are going to enjoy this, as we are. It’s the experience we want. We want to make sure we are one of the three teams. We’re looking forward to it and excited by it. We’re already trying to make arrangements to see the teams and plan the way we do things over the next few weeks.”

Like his manager, Goodison centre-back Alan Stubbs is pleased with the combination of fixtures facing Everton, and is confident of progressing through to the final 32.

“I think we can go a long way,” he said. “I think the way the draw has been made – the games we have got at home are probably the ones we wanted at home.

“We know we are a tough team to beat at Goodison Park and if we can go and get anything away from home in terms of draws or wins it would be a massive help for us.

“We will be looking to win at home and at this stage a few wins can more or less guarantee you a place going through.”

Of their group opponents, Everton have faced only Nurnberg before in a competitive encounter back in 1964-65 in the first round of the old Inter-Cities Fairs Cup – the predecessor to the UEFA Cup – when a solitary second-leg goal at Goodison from Jimmy Gabriel earned a 2-1 aggregate success.

AZ manager Louis van Gaal, a former coach of Barcelona said: “It is a stronger group than in previous years, but it’s not so strong that we are without a chance,” he said. “I find the diversity of the clubs very nice – it’s good that we play the last game against Everton in Alkmaar. There we can put possible mistakes right again.”