“But we didn’t do enough at the top end to create anything. We found it difficult. We had opportunities to get the ball in quicker but we turned our noses up at it, and we didn’t really do anything after that.

“I didn’t think we got worse today (after Kyrgiakos was sent off). I thought we did fine.

“We kept the ball. Mikel was on the ball, prodding, trying to get through. We wanted to mix the play up because we didn’t quite have enough to go round.

“It was great to get Mikel out there. I thought he did some really good things and you can see why we’ve missed him so much.”

Despite losing 2-0 to Liverpool at Goodison in November, Everton were clearly the better team on the day. That wasn’t the case on Saturday but Moyes admitted to being more disappointed this time round.

He continued: “I’m more disappointed now, but the difference is that you can see where we are improving.

“We were missing players in November, and now you can see there is an improvement in where we are going and what we are trying to do.

“It’s a disappointing defeat. It’s amazing that we’re coming away from Anfield and thinking we shouldn’t have got beat and should have done more.

“It shows you the change in the times.”

The loss extends a run that means Everton have now failed to win at Anfield since 1999.

However, Moyes believes it is only a matter of time until that changes.

“We can’t deny it was a great opportunity for us to beat Liverpool here,” he admitted.

“But there will be more opportunities because things are now much closer on the field between the two teams.”