David Moyes shares honest verdict on draw at Tottenham - 'Wee bit of Everton DNA'
David Moyes offers his verdict on Everton's 0-0 draw at Tottenham Hotspur in the Premier League, which extended their unbeaten start to four matches
David Moyes was pleased with the resilience of his Everton side but unhappy with their performance even as they earned a useful point at Tottenham Hotspur.
Spurs threatened to over-run the Blues as they started brightly, dominating the ball and forcing the visitors into a rearguard display.
But for all their early intensity, Tottenham's threat faded and it was Everton who ended the match having had the best chances, with Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall and Brennan Johnson missing good opportunities in the second half.
Speaking after his team extended their unbeaten start to the campaign, Moyes acknowledged the Blues struggled at times under the pressure exerted by Spurs.
OPINION
But against the backdrop of Everton's terrible record in this part of north London, he said: “Was I happy with the performance? Not really, no. I wanted much more from the team, but I told them about coming here - we've not had a great record here.
“It was only a couple months ago we stopped getting to Europe, probably, by not winning here as well so I generally felt that we had to come in and show a bit more, we had to be resilient and tough.
“Tottenham were so good for 20 minutes. They put us under so much pressure and we found it difficult to escape from it.
“But look, we were worthy, we made a couple of chances, but we didn't play well enough today when we had the ball. We gave it away, turned it over more often than we have done recently.”
While there was disappointment at the display, he accepted there were positives, too. Chief among them was the clean sheet earned by his back four and Jordan Pickford.
He said: “The clean sheet was huge for the team and for everybody. There was a wee bit of Everton DNA, we have to find ways, we have a terrific goalkeeper, a back four that does well.
“We know exactly where we're short and what we could do better at and what we'd like to do better at.
“But there'll be some games where we might have to play that way just to get ourselves through and pick up points. It wasn't the plan. We were forced into it by Tottenham.
“I thought we did a really good job of being resilient, hard to score against. Our goalie didn't have too many saves to make, we had a few blocks, a few corners we had to defend, but overall I thought we did a pretty good job.”