David Moyes hailed Jordan Pickford's performance after the Everton goalkeeper kept his side in it against Crystal Palace before Jack Grealish's late winner
David Moyes was delighted with his side's win
David Moyes was delighted with his side's win(Image: PA)
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David Moyes revealed that Jack Grealish played through the pain barrier to become Everton’s last-gasp match-winner against Crystal Palace as he hailed goalkeeper Jordan Pickford’s heroics on his 300th Premier League appearance for the club.
Grealish’s close-range strike on 93 minutes completed a dramatic 2-1 comeback victory for the Blues and Moyes said: “Jack has had a couple of minor injuries which have meant that over the last two games we’ve maybe had to nurse him a wee bit. He’s had to miss the odd day’s training with it, but I don’t think his performances have been in question, I think he’s doing a lot of good things.
“The team didn’t play particularly well in the first half and Jack was part of that as well.”
For his part, Pickford made several impressive saves, especially when Everton were trailing and Moyes said: “I think his ability to make saves is something that we don’t underestimate. He’s been really good since I came in and I think he’s been very good for all the managers who have been here, he’s been really important.
“We laugh about it and say he’s got a bit of a mad streak in him, and you never know what he might do – he’s a great kicker but a couple of times like in the first half it didn’t look great. But overall, he’s a terrific goalkeeper and that’s why he’s had 300 games today and eight years with England.
“He did a couple of things today and we needed him to do it, but we’ve always needed him to do it.”
Daniel Munoz had deservedly put Crystal Palace – who were looking to extend their unbeaten run to 20 matches – ahead on 37 minutes before Iliman Ndiaye restored parity with a 76th minute penalty and Moyes praised the impact of his substitutes to turn the game around. He said: “I’ve got to say the subs made a huge impact on the game. Charly, Beto and Tim all made an incredible impact which is great for me because I need them, and today we needed them to change things around.
“Look, I think the big thing at half-time was we needed to change the mentality and the way we had played. We started the game so poorly and when they kicked the ball up the pitch, we headed it out for a throw-in and they threw it into the box and we headed it out for a corner.
“Before you know it, we were defending two or three corner kicks in the first three or four minutes. We never got to grips with the game at all.
“We didn’t play well and while we had a few counter attacks and a few moments, we never had it. They were decisions I felt we had to try and make a way of clawing ourselves back into it, and we did and I thought we started the second half really well, but we still gave them two big opportunities.
“I thought we were getting better and stronger as the game went on and I thought the introduction of the boys coming off the bench made a big difference.”
With Everton now playing in front of the biggest regular crowds in their history at their new home on the Mersey waterfront, Moyes acknowledged the role the home supporters played in roaring their team back into the contest – especially when things were going badly. He said: “We’re needing it. We know not everything can be great right away.
“Whenever you go into a new stadium and I’ve seen it in many stadiums, there are lots of good things but things you need to get better, whether that’s outside or inside, us getting used to it or the pitch, whatever it might be, all the parts. We’ll not fix it in a few months, it will take a couple of years for everything to get settled down and we’re completely used to it.
“But at times, we needed the backing to see if they could roar us on. I thought the players went about it in the second half in the right manner, the support picked up and recognised a much-improved team.
“When it was one-nil, it looked as if they could have made it two-nil, but thankfully we stuck at it and kept them out.”