TONY CASCARINO has become renowned as no-nonsense a pundit as he was a player since hanging up his boots.

So his forthright views on the concerns gripping Goodison right now will make for uncomfortable reading for Evertonians.

"Everton are a club treading water, but sooner rather than later they’re going to start to sink," wrote Cascarino earlier this week. "David Moyes has overachieved and done brilliantly but his reputation will decline if Everton have a mediocre few years."

But when posed that scenario yesterday, Moyes took umbrage at the suggestion his standing was under threat.

And indeed, the Goodison manager believes his own reputation has been forged on bringing the best out of his team when circumstances are conspiring against them.

"I’m more interested in Everton’s reputation," says Moyes. "My aim to keep Everton a top six side. That’s what I’m interested in. David Moyes will work again if I have to, in time.

"I want to keep Everton here. We often talk about the need to keep making progress at Everton because we haven’t got the finances, that’s why we need to keep moving on.

"Any club would suffer with the injury problems we have had. But the job of the manager is to find a winning formula. That’s why I want to put my head above the parapet and be the one who says it’s my job to get us winning, no matter who or what I have got. That’s the job."

Rather than shrink into the background, Moyes claims to revel in the added pressure of having to guide his makeshift team through such choppy waters, with Europa League defeat to Benfica on Thursday meaning Everton have now not won in seven games.

"It’s not hard to accept the responsibility," he says. "I want that responsibility and thrive on it. But I also need the players to want to hang on to my shirt tails and come along with me. And in the main, the players have done that.

"But ultimately the manager takes responsibility throughout football. My reputation was probably built on not having players and having to find certain ways of getting teams winning without many players in the team.

"We’re probably in a situation now where I should try and come to the fore here and try and get winning teams with very little to choose from really."