Moyes' Verdict On Narrow Defeat To League Leaders

David Moyes felt Everton's energy and commitment were on display despite falling to a 1-0 loss at home to Arsenal.

Viktor Gyökeres scored the only goal of the clash on Saturday evening midway through the first half from the penalty spot after a Jake O'Brien handball.

The Blues boss discussed the fine margins as Thierno Barry had a spot-kick waved away at the other end, and commented on individual performances with a number of absences in his squad.

WATCH DAVID MOYES' POST-MATCH THOUGHTS AFTER EVERTON'S NARROW DEFEAT TO ARSENAL

David, a penalty is all that's proven the difference against the league leaders tonight...

Yes, and a really poor penalty from our point of view. If you're going to lose to Arsenal, you hope you might lose to Arsenal by a goal, which they're more than capable of scoring. So it was a poor decision by Jake, he shouldn't have raised his arms above his head at the action, but look, he feels he gets slightly pushed from behind and that caused his arms to fly up.

We were missing a lot of quality tonight, we know that, injuries and AFCON as well, but are you happy with how your players competed against arguably the best side in Europe this season?

Well, there's no excuses, you know, because other people lose players as well, so we've got no excuses with it. I thought the players were doing a great job, certainly their energy, their commitment, all those words you would use for the performance, they tried to show it, tried to show everything about it.

The quality we lacked at times, our passing wasn't as good. It was probably one of the poorest we've had with the ball. 

Do you feel we could have had a penalty shout ourselves?

I think we could have done. I think on another day somebody might have given a penalty. I think Saliba kicks the back of Thierno's Achilles, it looks like, and it's not as if he's sort of pulled his foot away, he's kicked through. I just think it looked like a bit of an action where there wasn't much happening, and Thierno's got in front of him and he's kicked. I don't know if the referee was expecting it or VAR, but it didn't go our way. We've not been getting many decisions here, that's for sure.

With the absences, obviously, it's a chance for players to step up. Michael Keane's done that this season. Do you feel the likes of Tim Iroegbunam did that in Idrissa's absence tonight?

I thought Tim played well. I think Tim has played well at different times for us. We want him to look to play forward a bit more and be a bit more positive, but his retention of the ball and his work was very good and he's done a good job against Declan tonight.

And, finally, I know we're disappointed not to get a result against another top-quality team as well, but when you see the tifo and the fans before kick-off, the connection you've built since you've come, and the way the players battled, there are a lot of positives for you to pick up, aren't there, going into the new year?

The players continually, they're brilliant at the way they work. Their effort, their commitment is not in question. There'll be games where we will lose, but it certainly won't be for any of the words that I'm using at the moment.