David Moyes admitted Everton were far from their best but praised his players’ character after Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall’s 91st-minute equaliser rescued a 2-2 draw at the Gtech Community Stadium on Saturday.
The Toffees twice came from behind. Beto’s header pulled Everton level in the first half before Dewsbury-Hall’s low drive in stoppage time completed another comeback.
Moyes made no attempt to dress up the performance, but insisted the point had real value given the difficulty of the fixture and the stakes involved.
“I’m not hugely pleased with how we played today, but I’m really pleased with the point,” he said. “I think if you’d given me a point even if we’d played really well today, I might have said it would be a good result here.”
A win for either side would have lifted them level with Liverpool in fifth and into Champions League contention. Instead, both clubs remain eighth and seventh respectively, level on 47 points, with six games to play.
Moyes acknowledged the ground had never been a comfortable venue for his side – though Everton have lost none of their last three visits to the Gtech – and credited the squad for refusing to accept defeat in the closing stages.
“It’s never been easy for many teams, I don’t think it’s been easy here for us,” he said. “We take a point and we move on. We had to fight really hard to get it in the end and the players deserve a lot of credit for how they’ve gone about it — not so much the performance, but how they kept on going at the end in finding a way to get a goal.”
Thiago’s second goal, which proved the most frustrating moment for Everton, came via a fortunate deflection off Michael Kayode’s effort. Moyes felt his side were beginning to find their rhythm at that point, making the timing of the goal all the more difficult to take.
“Their goal was really unfortunate from our side,” he said. “The boy kicks it across and it hits a player and deflects away from Jordan [Pickford], and at that period we were just growing back into the game.”
The Everton manager conceded his team’s level had been inconsistent throughout, though stopped short of being too critical given the away point secured. “There were bits of what we done today that was OK, but we didn’t start the second half well at all — the first half either,” he said. “Bits of it not so good. But look, away from home we’ve done OK.”
Everton now prepare for the Merseyside derby next weekend, with their European ambitions very much alive heading into the final stretch of the campaign.