Moyes sets Everton defenders 10-goal target

Jan 12 2008

Everton boss David Moyes, celebrating 10 years as a manager this weekend, saw his weakened side forced to hang on to their lead, given them by Joleon Lescott’s first-half effort.

Moyes said: “I knew today that with the players we had missing, injured or away on international duty, that this was going be a tough one.

“For half an hour we played well, but after that our defenders were excellent while we had two youngsters up front who gave City a lot of worries with their enthusiasm.

“And that was Joleon’s sixth goal of the season, but for a central defender the target should be 10 like Tony Adams or Derek Mountfield used to get. He can do that too before the end of the season.

“It was good for Joleon after what happened right at the death with his own goal at Chelsea. He was down, but this has helped him bounce back.”

He added: “We missed the flair of Steven Pienaar and the strength of (Ayegbeni) Yakubu. But we know this will be a difficult month.

“But we defended really well, and Tony Hibbert did a really good job on (Martin) Petrov, who has been terrorising defenders.

“It is getting really tight now for fourth spot. Looking at the way the results are going, we know we just have to hang in there and hope we are in the right place at the end of the season. But that will be tough, there is nothing between anyone these days in the top half.”