David Moyes: My current crop better than class of 2005

Oct 27 2007 by Chris Beesley, Liverpool Daily Post

DAVID MOYES believes that his current squad is the best group of players he’s been in charge of since he took over at Goodison.

After a 3-1 victory over Larissa in the UEFA Cup on Thursday, Everton are back in Premier League action at Derby County tomorrow as Moyes returns to the scene of his first away game in charge at Everton.

Five-and-a-half years after that 4-3 win, the Scot believes that he now has the strongest squad at his disposal since he took charge and that the class of 2007-08 are better than the group of players that secured a top four spot in the Premier League in 2005.

Moyes said: “I feel it’s a stronger group than what we’ve had but I think the Premier League has become much stronger. I think the teams from places four to about 10 to 12 have become much stronger so the battle to be in there is going to be tough this year.

“Personally I feel we’ve got a better group but we know where we’ve got to add extras now and hopefully we’ll do that at the right time.

“The group that finished fourth were a terrific collective group.

“They were never beaten, always in games, stuck to it, were hard to beat and were very disciplined.

“What we’ve tried to do is add a little bit more flair to the team to play in a better fashion if we can.

“Sometimes when you’re tweaking that you don’t quite get it all at the same time but we still need to make sure we’re hard to beat and don’t concede any goals.”

While Everton will be disappointed with the soft goal that they conceded against Larissa, both the build-up and the finish for Leon Osman’s strike showed the kind of football the team are now capable of producing.

Moyes said: “We’ve had cover at centre-back, up front and full-back positions but the one area we’ve been short of is central midfield players.

“Tim Cahill and Tommy Gravesen coming back will hopefully help us pass and play better.

“I’ve always wanted teams to win in style.

“Style is important but winning will always be the thing that matters.

“I’d rather my teams play with flair and excitement that would be ideal.

“We had Mikel Arteta, Tim Cahill, Steven Pienaar, Leon Osman and James McFadden in the starting line up so we couldn’t do much more when it came to our intentions of trying to play slickly and sharp.

“Maybe that showed in a lot of the play that we had.”

Everton made five changes against Larissa from the side that started against Liverpool and with the demands of regularly playing twice a week, Moyes is hoping that he now has the numbers required.

He said: “That was one of the reasons we needed to the extra players. We hoped we’d reach the UEFA Cup group stage and we have done so.

“We’re still trying to find our feet and find the best side for each occasion.

“That’s why I want to hang on to the teams above us just now.

“By Christmas time I think it will settle down a bit more but until then with all the games we’ve got in our programme we’re going to have to keep using the players in the squad that we’ve got.

“At the moment I think at Everton we should do better.

“I’m always looking for us to do better, I think we can play better.”

Everton should go into tomorrow’s game without any fresh injury problems.

James Vaughan and Andrew Johnson remain out while Tony Hibbert and Phil Neville are suspended after their respective sendings off against Liverpool so either Joseph Yobo or Phil Jagielka could switch to right-back.

The game sees Moyes pitted against Rams manager Billy Davies, one of his oldest friends in football.

He said: “Billy and I are good friends. We played for Scotland schoolboys together and we travelled in the car for two years together at Dunfermline.”