PHIL JAGIELKA is concerned that tired legs could undermine Everton’s bid to finish the season at full throttle.
The England defender admitted he was struggling to taken any positives from the Blues’ 1-1 draw with Wigan at the DW stadium on Saturday.
And the 28-year-old said it is vital that Everton can improve their stamina as a gruelling season nears its conclusion with the visit of Manchester City next weekend.
He said: “It’s difficult. The boys are looking a little bit tired and some of them have been out for a while and not played much football. The team itself was a bit up and down against Wigan so hopefully we can refresh the boys and get a bit of fitness back into the lads who need it before Manchester City come.
“It wasn’t a great performance. We didn’t look like scoring.
“I suppose you can say we didn’t lose and we got a point but that’s the only positives we can take from it.”
David Moyes was able to reintroduce Mikel Arteta and Tim Cahill to his starting line-up after injuries and both had to be substituted in the second half when their lack of match fitness began to tell.
But Jagielka insisted the team’s poor showing was nothing to do with reaccommodating their star men.
“They are special players and add a lot to our team,” he said. “We’ve played a slightly different way in recent weeks and picked up some fantastic performances along the way.
“Even at Man U it was a decent containing job for most of the game, but it was nothing to do with those two coming back why we didn’t play well. At least that’s 60 minutes under their belt and it will only make them better come the weekend.
“They (Wigan) needed the points a little bit more than we did and were a bit more edgy but it was still end to end. We’re not happy with how we played.”
Jagielka accepted Everton must improve if they hope to do the double over Manchester City this season but added that he hopes summer reinforcements to the Toffees’ small squad are imminent.
He said: “We’ll have to play a little bit better than we did at Wigan against City. They will have Champions League football on their minds and we want to stay at least in seventh.
“We’ve had a decent enough run against them in recent seasons so it’ll be interesting to see how we get on at home.
“They are coming to Goodison wanting to win and it will hopefully be an open game, and we can hit them on the counter attack and score like we did at Eastlands earlier in the season.
“If we finish seventh it will be good because we’ve spent most of the season in the bottom half.
“Hopefully there’ll be a few players to join us over the summer.”
