What The Papers Say - 22 December

The views on this page are taken from the local and national media and do not necessarily reflect the views of Everton.

David Moyes spoke to Match of the Day after Everton fell to a narrow 1-0 defeat against league leaders Arsenal on Saturday evening.

The manager praised the team's effort and commitment as they looked for an equaliser against the Gunners, but feels his side need to score more goals.

"You can play a well as you like and do good things but we need to get some goals," Moyes said. "We've not had goals in the last two games, which is the bit that's been missing, really.

"We done a lot of things, the players' effort, the spirit. Everything you'd want them to do they did. It was just a bit of quality or trying to hurt Arsenal a bit more. Arsenal have given up very few chances and we just didn't get enough opportunities.

"I thought we started the game well. I don't think we were under a great deal of pressure until the penalty kick. I think after the penalty we were rocked a little bit. I thought prior to it we started the game better than Arsenal.

"I think the second half we had to make the game more open, we had to be more committed than we'd been. We tried to get forward a bit more and quicker but it also allowed Arsenal to have one or two brilliant passing moves. I thought we stuck at it, never gave in, we were always in the game right to the end. Credit to the players."

Meanwhile, Jordan Pickford's post-match verdict is featured in the Liverpool ECHO, and agrees with his manager regarding the team's effort.

"We were committed and put a lot of effort in against a team who are top of the league. They don’t give many goals away, so we know they’re going to be hard to break down.

"Everyone ran their ******** off and the subs who came on put a right shift in. That’s what you need, you’re not going to get many chances against top teams and that’s why they’re top of the league and that’s probably been the difference.

"It was one of those games, I thought we defended really well and didn’t give them many opportunities at all. We defended the set-pieces well, were hard to break down, committed people forward on a press but when you commit yourself and press, top teams are going to play some good football and get out, which they did a couple of times.

"We want to be coming away with the three points or at least not getting beat at this stadium, no matter who you play against, so that’s a disappointing thing but the positive is that we’re playing good football. We’re not far off and it’s probably fine margins over the past two games where we’ve not got the first goal and put them under pressure enough, but the football side is really good, we’re so resilient."