David Moyes

Everton’s cup run has been against a back drop of long-term injuries this term but they received a pre-match boost when United manager Sir Alex Ferguson chose to rest several of his stars – leaving Wayne Rooney, Cristiano Ronaldo and Edwin van der Sar back home.

Moyes said: “We’ve been battling against adversity this season, we’ve not been able to rest our best players, we were putting out all that we’ve got. You could see our injured players around there like Ayegbeni Yakubu, Mikel Arteta and Victor Anichebe and we need them, we don’t have a squad big enough.

“I was thinking they’ve (United) got some young boys full of energy and if they’d have played more of the players who figured at Porto they might not have had as much energy. They had fresh legs with new players coming into the team. I think I understand why Sir Alex picked his young lads – he’s already got two trophies under his belt this season, is still in the Champions League and is going for the Premier League. The key to developing players is to give them opportunities and I don’t think the young boys let him down, they made a good game of it and made it hard for us.”

He added: “I thought before the game that all the expectation was on Manchester United. I think after Sir Alex’s team selection there was a change and a bigger expectation for Everton to win because of it.

“If I’d have lost everyone would have been saying it wasn’t a full strength United team – maybe they’ll still be saying that. But when you have to play Liverpool twice and you beat them, you beat Aston Villa, you beat Middlesbrough and Macclesfield on a cold January day, then you deserve to be in the final.”