Moyes relieved to battle through

19 February 2012 07:17

Everton boss David Moyes was delighted to see his side navigate their way past Blackpool and book a place in the FA Cup quarter-finals on Saturday - particularly given the number of players he had unavailable.

Landon Donovan was struck down by illness and fellow loanee Steven Pienaar was cup-tied. Tim Cahill was said to be carrying "two or three injuries" and Moyes also had Shane Duffy, Nikica Jelavic, Phil Jagielka, Leon Osman, Jack Rodwell and Victor Anichebe in the treatment room as well.

Despite the list of absentees and casualties, Everton went on to win the tie at Goodison Park 2-0 thanks to two goals in the opening six minutes and Moyes said afterwards: "The amount of players we had out, I don't know if I've had it as bad really. I'm sure I have, but it felt that way today."

He added: "We didn't have Landon and Bainesy was sick on the pitch in the warm-up. He was as ill as anybody and I wasn't going to play him, but I told him to give it a go and we would see how he was, so for him to play (Baines lasted the full 90 minutes) says a lot about him. He has changed a lot - he is tough and resilient and is turning out to be a really good player.

"Tim Cahill is carrying two or three injuries at the moment and Shane Duffy is injured. We were really short, with not having Jelavic, Jagielka, Osman, Rodwell and Anichebe."

Asked what he thought his team had learned from the game, Seasiders boss Ian Holloway said: "That we are a million miles away from them.

"I thought they were closing and pressing, that they understood what we were going to try to do and that we didn't see that and play the ball in the right areas.

"We have been beaten by the better team today, but I thought we showed character to come back into it later on in the game.

"A lot of teams I've had in the past might have gone completely and capitulated there, but we managed to haul ourselves back into it.

"But we were nowhere near as good as we normally are because David has a great team here."

Source: PA