Moyes Sets Everton Demand After Mixed Sunderland Display

David Moyes says Everton must start turning positive patches into complete performances after a mixed display in a hard-fought 1-1 draw at Sunderland on Monday night.

Despite the Black Cats' excellent start to life back in the Premier League, the Blues dominated the opening half hour at the Stadium of Light, capped off by Iliman Ndiaye's breathtaking solo opener when the Senegalese beat three defenders and curled a delightful finish into the bottom left-hand corner.

Other chances came for James Garner, Jack Grealish and a golden opportunity for Thierno Barry to make it 2-0 from close range.

But having been so good during that spell, Moyes felt his side were "abysmal" in a second half which saw the hosts level just a minute in when Granit Xhaka's 20-yard shot took a horrible deflection off James Tarkowski to beat Jordan Pickford.

Having put together encouraging moments in recent losses to Manchester City and Tottenham Hotspur, Moyes called on his squad "to find a way out" and produce more consistency throughout matches to get rewards.

Asked on the importance in keeping faith in what has been working to create chances, Moyes told evertontv: "Yes, we want to keep it going. That's why I'm disappointed tonight, because I thought the second-half performance was way below the levels we've set generally, and I think we'd set the levels we think we're at in the first half for long periods. But it's not good enough if we're only doing it for 30 minutes. We need to be able to play well. We played quite well at Man City for 30 minutes, we played quite well against Tottenham for 30, 40 minutes, but it wasn't enough and it's not enough. We've got to find a way out – doing it for much longer periods than we're doing at the moment."

The Blues boss added: "After minutes or so I was thinking, 'We've got this game, we're playing so well and if we keep this up then we'll be getting the goals'. We get one, hit the post twice, then Barry misses a big chance which would have made it 2-0. I thought that took the wind out of our sails a little bit. I think everybody sort of went, 'Oh my goodness, we didn't take the chance we got', because Sunderland are one of the best defensive teams in the league at the moment and not giving away too many opportunities.

"So to have got 2-0 up would have been a big thing for us and we didn't get it. I thought they became the better team in the last 15 minutes of the first half and they were certainly the better team for the majority of the second half. I thought we were absymal in the second half. We were resilient enough to stick and get a point out of it, but I'm a bit disappointed.  I'm more disappointed with the performance today than I am with the point."

Moyes confirmed he was hopeful Ndiaye's enforced substitution on 62 minutes was "just cramp" – before praising the 25-year-old for his superb goal that continues a fine individual campaign so far.

"It was a great individual goal, the way he wriggled out," added Moyes. "He was in front of me just at the dugout and fought off a couple of challenges, got away, wriggled in, beat people and passed into the far corner. It was a really, really good goal."