BOSS POINTS FINGER

Saturday 12 February 2005, 09:32

David Moyes felt that William Gallas fell to ground far too easily following the clash with James Beattie that led to the Everton striker's dismissal during Saturday's game at Goodison.

Referee Mike Riley produced a straight red card for Beattie after he clashed with the Chelsea defender's head as the two players battled for the ball in the eighth minute of the 0-1 defeat.

Moyes argued afterwards that his player shouldn't have walked and felt that if the same incident had involved John Terry there would have been a different reaction.

"I don't think it was sending off," he told evertonfc.com. "When I was a centre-half I'd have been ashamed to go down that easily.

"If you're a big centre half you'd be ashamed to go down like that. I don't think John Terry would have gone down that easily.

"I think it spoiled the game for 40,000 people who came here today.

"Chelsea know that it was a big win for them but it shouldn't have been. We should have given them a better game than what we did do but circumstances stopped us from being able to do that.

"We wanted to give them a better game than we did do but today that wasn't possible."

Despite having the lion's share of possession, Chelsea couldn't find a way past Nigel Martyn until Eidur Gudjohnsen's 70th minute tap-in decided the match.

Riley's earlier decision had left Everton with a mountain to climb and Moyes praised the performance of the 10 remaining men who battled bravely until the end.

"It was very difficult, they played it very well when we went to 10 men. They kept the ball and made us run around," he said.

"They didn't give us many chances to regain possession, but credit to our lads for sticking at it.

"Marcus Bent was fantastic for us in the second half. The lads did well to keep us in the game after playing with 10 men for so long. It was credit to them.

"It's important now to move on," he continued. "We always knew that it was going to be a hard game whether we had 11 men playing or even 12. We've got to move on now and no matter what happens at the end of the weekend we'll still be fourth."