DAVID MOYES admits Everton must start showing substance over style as he urged his players to get tough in the fight to kickstart their spluttering campaign.
The Goodison outfit’s disappointing season reached a new low in midweek when they were embarrassingly dumped out of the Carling Cup by npower League One strugglers Brentford.
It came just days after Everton delivered what Moyes described as their worst performance in more than a year when beaten 1-0 at home by Newcastle United.
A worst start to a Premier League campaign since 1994 of just two points from five games means only West Ham United stand below Moyes’s men in the embryonic standings.
Everton aim for their first league victory of the season when they take on Fulham at Craven Cottage, a venue where they have won only once since 1966.
And Moyes, who is hopeful Tim Cahill will return to action this afternoon, has challenged his players to stand up and scrap their way back to form and up the table.
"The biggest concern for me is that we have lost our competitive edge in the last few games," said the Goodison manager. "The one thing you could never do was beat Everton up. If you wanted a scrap against us, then we’d be standing there waiting for you, not a problem.
"I’ve told them that I’ve been disappointed with the physical side of their game. Especially against Newcastle, I don’t think we’ve competed as well as we can.
"Maybe we will have to sacrifice a little of the playing style we have got to get better results.
"But the players we’ve got here, we can’t suddenly go and shell the ball forward, take long bombs into the box. I don’t think I’ve got that style of player.
"We’ve evolved since I first took over, we don’t have that style. We play football, we pass the ball around and we are creative going towards the 18 yard box.
"We have moved forward to where we are now. The Mikel Artetas, the Steven Pienaars, the Leon Osmans, we are in a different stage of our development now, and it is certainly not so simple as stopping playing a certain style and switching to another."
