PHIL NEVILLE says he has high hopes for the new season – and believes the future of the club looks bright with the recent Academy successes.

The Everton captain shares in the frustrations of many Evertonians after the 2010-11 campaign began sluggishly meaning the side faced an uphill task after the New Year to salvage any hopes of Europa League qualification.

But Neville believes everyone at Goodison Park needs to now look back at last season in a positive light and the captain points to an improved final league position as reason for optimism.

Everton are yet to make any moves in the transfer market this summer but Neville has high praise for the foundations already laid down by manager David Moyes and expects to see some of the title winning under-18 side given first team chances.

“I think if you ask a lot of Evertonians I think they’d be quite disappointed with last season. I think the manager would be and I think the players would be,” he said. “There’s been a lot of negativity surrounding the club this season but we should snap out of that.

“We finished seventh in the table, we finished eighth the season before that so in terms of league position we’ve improved on last season.

“I think we’re so close to something very special here, the positives we can take out of this season are the foundations are as strong as ever, the spirit and the togetherness of the manager, the players, the staff, the supporters, the whole club is still there.

“As long as you’ve got that foundation you can always be positive.

“The Under-18s have just won the Youth League, we’ve got young players coming through, a manager who is not afraid to blood young players and I think the future is bright.

“Yes we’ve had disappointments this year, probably more disappointments than the good bits but we can still look back on this year and be proud that we’ve recovered well from a bad start.

“We’ve finished the season strongly we’re in seventh place in the league, we’ve beaten some very good teams and we’ve played some fantastic football. Maybe we should concentrate on the positives rather than the negatives.”

Meanwhile, goalkeeper Tim Howard was left devastated by the USA’s Gold Cup final defeat against Mexico – but defended their policy of attack.

America raced into a two-goal lead inside 23 minutes at the weekend in Pasadena only to be hit with a Mexican wave which saw them eventually lose 4-2.

Not content with leading 2-0, Howard’s team-mates went in search of a third goal but paid the price as Mexico struck through Andres Guardado, Giovani dos Santos and a Pablo Barrera double.

Everton number one Howard, who had kept three clean sheets en route to the final, admits defeat was hard to take but says there can be no room for regret.

“They’ve got some special players,” said Howard of Mexico.

“I thought we’d knocked the stuffing out of them at 2-0 but take your hat off to them they are a good bunch of players.

“Our game plan worked to a ‘T’ – they came out and possessed it and spread us out but we picked and chose our spots and when to get them.

“Our combinations were really good, up front we hit them and it’s beyond me how they rallied back from that.

“Sometimes you lie in wait and it kills you, a bend but don’t break defence can break.

“We felt good about what we were doing, playing from a good shell and then springing and breaking and we did that really well, there was no sense in retreating we didn’t want to do that.

“Every team in this tournament has sat back and waited on them, and they just picked them apart. We didn’t want to do that, going for the third goal was just being aggressive.”