Moyes On Everton Plus Points From Slender City Loss

David Moyes felt the majority of Everton's performance at Manchester City showed the progress his side are making to give travelling Blues "something to show" – despite coming away from the Etihad empty-handed after Erling Haaland's quick-fire second-half double.

Moyes agreed the Toffees were the better team in the first half on Saturday against a City side coming into the clash on a seven-match unbeaten run, with Beto and the hugely-impressive Iliman Ndiaye going closest to breaking the deadlock.

The Everton manager was disappointed, then, with the in-form Haaland taking the contest away from his team with a header and deflected striker either side of the hour mark.

Despite that – and the Blues missing 'some big chances' before the break – Moyes felt the display was further proof of the strides his squad are making away from home, having notched victories at the likes of Brighton, Crystal Palace, Nottingham Forest, Fulham and Newcastle United since his return to the Club in January, adding to their unbeaten start to life at Hill Dickinson Stadium.

"I’m pleased with how we played," Moyes told evertontv. "We were a bit disappointed when we lost the first goal. It was only 1-0 but to give them a second goal quickly was a killer for us. But there are a lot of good things we could talk about and what we've done well. We've come here and given them a bit of a game. Maybe we'd like to do better, but we're only growing at the moment and we're still trying to get better.

"We missed a couple of big chances in the first half, which might have altered things the way we were playing. We needed any opportunities we got to go in or to certainly get us something more positive than we did. So, look, no real problems with the performance overall – most of it. We've done a pretty good job."

WATCH DAVID MOYES' POST-MATCH INTERVIEW WITH evertontv AFTER THE BLUES' 2-0 LOSS AT MANCHESTER CITY

On Everton's away progress, Moyes added: "We've had a very good away record and I actually in some ways fancied myself coming here. We went about it [the right way], we tried to be on the front foot as often as we could be. We wanted to play. We think we're playing with a more open style. We still wanted that to be today. We created a few chances but I don't know if we're going to get seven or eight chances where we take it. The one or two we got today were actually big opportunities.

"I actually think Beto's second chance, which he misses but was given offside, I think it's onside. It would have been interesting with our decision if it had been scored.

"I want to give the away support something to show, I want them to go to the games having hope and some faith that we're going to get results. Some of the results we had at Brighton and Crystal Palace was great, the celebrations we had. So I want to do that again. We weren't able to do it today but it certainly wasn't for the lack of effort or the lack of us trying to find ways of beating Man City. Ultimately their quality, their ability, their centre forward's got to finish things off and one or two players they've got as well make a big difference."

Despite loanee Jack Grealish being unavailable to face his parent club, Moyes got plenty of attacking quality from the "oustanding" Ndiaye, who he called the "standout player" on the Etihad pitch.

"I thought Ili's performance in the first half was outstanding," he added. "I thought he was a standout player at that time in the game. I just saw signs that he had fatigue during the game because of [recent internationals], and even the [first] goal, we just get it a yard wrong from stopping the pass going through.

"Ili is playing really, really well but I just don't know if maybe the two games for his international team just took a bit more out of him and the travel as well. But he played very well, just unfortunately he couldn't get us a goal."