TIM HOWARD is confident Everton FC will bounce back from derby defeat – but admits the international break has come at the wrong time for the hurting Goodison outfit.

The blue half of Merseyside continues to fume at the controversial red card shown by referee Martin Atkinson to Jack Rodwell after just 23 minutes of the 2-0 home loss to Liverpool on Saturday.

Everton have lodged an appeal against the dismissal, with the Football Association expected to announce a decision this afternoon on receipt of Atkinson’s match report.

David Moyes’s side are now without a game until Saturday week when they resume Premier League duties at Chelsea, the latest in a demanding sequence of fixtures.

And Howard admits Everton would rather be straight back into a game rather than being forced to ponder back-to-back league defeats for the first time since November 2009.

“That’s the hard part,” said the United States goalkeeper. “You go away from this game and have two weeks to think about it.

“It’s brilliant if you win, but because we have dropped the points it’s hard to take.

“We have to go away and lick our wounds, and that’s a long time to do that.

“But we have been in good spirits this season, we have been positive and training has been good. We need to keep that up.

“We’re in the middle of a tough stretch of games but we are prepared for it. If we can keep the level of our performances high and keep our players on the field, then we should be okay.

“The manager made us take pride in the fact we didn’t lose back-to-back games, we were resilient and always came back.

“Unfortunately that has come to an end but we have no time to rest because it is a tough stretch for us.”