“But hopefully it won’t happen again.

“The one thing we’ve had is the stability. We’ve got the players in quite early and quite

young, and they’ve gone with us.

“People like Cahill and Phil Neville and Tim Howard have

been with us four or five years now, lots of players like that who know what we are after.

“We need to keep recycling, bringing people like Rodwell and Gosling in at the bottom end.

“Hopefully they will stay with us. It’s important to bring in young players because at the

top end players will drop off and you need to replace them at the other end.”

Moyes knows today’s game will be competitive, as Alex McLeish also tries to guide his side towards one of the top seven places.

He said: “Birmingham will be looking at the teams above them saying the same as me, trying to win their next game and see where it goes.

“Everyone is trying to finish as high up the league as they can. Birmingham have had a really good season and are in a strong position.”

Everton will benefit from the steadying presence of Phil Jagielka back at the heart of defence, but his manager stressed that the England star will need time to recover fully like team-mate Mikel Arteta.

He said: “He seems fine. He was a bit stiff for a day or two after Hull.

“Jags isn’t fully back, things will be a little bit up and down. He hasn’t played one reserve game and we put him straight back in. We’ve taken a risk by putting him back in. but from what I’ve seen so far he has helped. He has made us better and made us stronger defensively.”