David Moyes: Everton FC’s recovery is some way off yet

Oct 19 2009 by Ian Doyle, Liverpool Daily Post

DAVID MOYES admits Everton will take longer to regain their top form after their inconsistent start to the season continued.

The Goodison outfit were held to a home draw for the second successive home game on Saturday when they drew 1-1 with Wolverhampton Wanderers.

Only an 88th-minute goal from Diniyar Bilyaletdinov prevented Moyes’s side from an embarrassing defeat and extended their unbeaten run to seven games.

The Scot, however, has been unimpressed with the performances during that period, with his team now in the bottom half of the Premier League table.

Everton overcame a poor start last season to ultimately finish fifth and reach the FA Cup final.

But Moyes has warned the recovery period may be longer this time around, with key injured players such as Mikel Arteta, Phil Jagielka and Phil Neville facing at least another month on the sidelines.

“I don’t know about assessing this season differently just yet, I need to wait to get everybody back together,” said the Goodison manager.

“This time last season we'd started to recover a wee bit more. I think the recovery might be longer this season.

“Why? Because of the late recruitment and the players who were out all summer – Mikel, Yakubu. Yak is just beginning to get back to a little bit like it.”

Moyes added: “I thought we played better against Stoke. We didn't win the game but you can take it, the odd game.

“We won four or five before but I didn't think we played that well in those games. I thought against Stoke we actually played better and only got a point. I expected to build on that in this game and we didn't.

“As a team I think we know we're not performing to where we should be. It's not just the results. The performances are really important as well.

“I’m pleased we fought back but I'd rather we hadn't gone behind. It was very sloppy the goal and it would have been nice if we had got one so easy as that. But we didn't. We had to work really hard to score our goal.”

The lack of options in midfield has given a run of games to Jack Rodwell, with the 18-year-old responding with a string of impressive performances.

However, Rodwell was off the pace at the weekend, and while Moyes accepts it would benefit the youngster to be taken out of the firing line, there may not be any choice in the matter in the coming weeks.