David Moyes picked out Beto, Dwight McNeil and Carlos Alcaraz as he sought to take positives from Everton’s draw with Ipswich Town.
The Blues boss conceded he was disappointed after his side blew a two-goal lead for the fourth time this season, the second under him, but struck an optimistic tone in his assessment of the game.
He argued Beto, who now has six since he returned to the dugout in January, could have had more had he played more in the first half of the season and praised McNeil and Alcaraz for answering his call for more goals and assists from midfield.
After the match, Moyes pointed to the chances given to the attacking three behind Beto – Iliman Ndiaye, McNeil and Alcaraz – as an example of him exploring new options within his squad.
He said: “It’s something a lot of the supporters have been asking about, Ili playing as a 10, and wanting to see more of Charlie Alcaraz, so we’ve given them another good opportunity to show what they can do. Getting Dwight back, it was the first time I’ve had Dwight since I’ve been at the club. I thought he scored a good goal, he still lacked a bit of intensity in his play in the first half but I actually thought he got better in the second half, put in three or four brilliant crosses for us, which probably if we’d got on the end of one of them, it might have just seen us over the line really. The game was always tight, but we should have done a bit better. We’ve had that a couple of times now, we’ve been two up and not seen it out.”
Moyes acknowledged his frustration Everton had not clinched a useful win but explained: “I’m disappointed we didn’t win but I think there’s a lot of positives in where we’ve been and how we’re playing and what we’re doing, trying to make the chances.
“We didn’t have enough shots in the second half but I thought we had near-enough control for most of the game up until the last five or 10 minutes when they got a couple of corners and long throws at that point, whatever time that was, I thought in the main we controlled the game.”
On Beto, he said: “It was a great header and a great delivery from Charlie as well, which I’ve been talking a lot about – getting better assists and better finishes. We had one or two other moments where maybe we could have done a little bit better.
“I thought in the first half our crossing in the box wasn’t as good as it should have been, I thought that the second half got better… Overall, Beto’s done great, gets himself another goal today. So he’s been doing really well, we’re pleased with him.
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