David Moyes looks ahead to Everton's new season

Apr 18 2008

Everton boss David Moyes is already looking ahead to next season, when he insists his new contract and blueprint for the future will receive the approval of ever-obliging owner Bill Kenwright.

But sadly for Moyes, his current season of creditable toil and achievement is unravelling before him.

Last night’s home defeat by Chelsea left Everton with just one victory from six Barclays Premier League games since their unlucky exit from the UEFA Cup.

Fourth place is now slipping away, with Moyes now only talking of hanging onto fifth and a place in the UEFA Cup again.

Portsmouth are now uncomfortably close, with a game in hand and four points to make up while Aston Villa, still to visit Goodison Park, are in the chase too.

Moyes said: "We have had a very good season, so why should we allow it to peter out?

"We have done so well we must keep going and finish well because teams behind us are closing on us.

"We have had a good European run this season, and enjoyed it. The target is to make sure we qualify again."

But Moyes is fully aware of his limited resources, evident as Everton struggled far more without Mikel Arteta, Tim Cahill and Leon Osman than Chelsea did while missing Frank Lampard, Michael Ballack and Didier Drogba.

Moyes said: "We have Villa at home next and they are coming up fast. We have important games left and it would be a shame for things to fall away now."

Moyes desperately wants to continue the progress he has achieved in his six years at the club, and admits he would be more than happy to stay for six more.

He said: "It will take us another five or years to be up there with a chance of breaking into the top four.

"We need to continue with the same sort of building that has gone on for the last few years here.

"We have good foundations here, a good structure. The club is on a firm footing with the playing staff we have.

"We need to build on that the way we have been doing and then the success will come.

"And if they want me to be here for five or six more years, that will be OK.

"What I need to see is that they have the same ambitions as me, and that we are going along together to try to get Everton back to the dizzy heights of a few years ago."

On his own future, he added: "I do not have any particular reason to believe that the club will feel any differently to me. I expect them to be behind the sort of plans I want to embark on.

"The thing is, we have to find out whether we have the finance in place to take us where we want to go.

"Over the years that has been steady, but we have not been spending wildly to give us an instant hit.

"I have said many times, it is a decent way that we have done it so far and Everton fans can be proud of that. A club has been built and it has been in the traditions of Everton’s great past.

"I don’t expect vast amounts but we have managed to regularly break our club transfer record, and we will need to continue to do that.

"The players we would require to come to Everton now are the sort that cost quite a bit of money.

"We are pushing hard to stay in the top six and get into Europe, and those type of players maybe cost more than we have spent in the past.

"We have always made a good fist of what money we have had, but maybe there will not be £26million strikers."