Everton FC news:We have closed the gap on Liverpool, says David Moyes

Feb 8 2010 by Ian Doyle, Liverpool Daily Post

EVERTON will take positives from Saturday’s defeat at Anfield.

That is the message from David Moyes, who was in bullish mood following the 1-0 loss that ended the Goodison Park club’s nine game unbeaten run in the league.

The Everton manager also believes his team are getting closer to Liverpool, despite suffering a second loss to their Mersey rivals this season.

“We came off the pitch not feeling like losers, that was for sure,” said Moyes.

“I came away thinking we hadn’t done enough to win, but I didn’t think we felt like losers. We came off the pitch with a lot going for us.

“You’d have to say there is very little between Liverpool and Everton at this present time on the field. There’s not much of a gap between the two now, and that says a lot for how far Everton have come over recent years.”

Despite playing two-thirds of the game with an extra man, following the dismissal of Liverpool defender, Sotirios Kyrgiakos, Everton failed to break their hosts down.

Marouane Fellaini was forced off injured in the incident with Kyrgiakos and was replaced by Mikel Arteta.

The introduction of the Spanish playmaker had little effect on Everton’s invention but Moyes insists the midfielder did as well as could be expected after recently returning from a long injury lay-off.

“We didn’t deserve to lose the game, that’s a definite,” he said.

“I thought we passed it quite well. We needed a bit more width and that was the only thing we lacked at times.

“I thought we had patience. I thought we passed the ball well. We played round them, tried to go over the top and mixed it up well.

“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.”