David Moyes was relieved Everton ended their losing streak with a 3-1 victory at Fulham but is not getting ahead of himself.
Former Fulham striker Louis Saha returned to haunt his old club with a late goal which inspired the Toffees to a dramatic win at Craven Cottage. The 33-year-old netted from an acute angle for Everton before Jack Rodwell scored in stoppage time to ensure they ended their three-match losing streak.
Moyes, whose side welcome Manchester United next weekend, was philosophical after the victory in west London and hopes outsiders will be too. He said: "I don't think we'll be thinking too far ahead. If you look back to previous seasons, we've tended to get better as the season's gone on so I'm hoping that will be the case again."
He added: "What we needed to do from this period was find a win from somewhere. We've had a really difficult last three games, with Man City, Liverpool and Chelsea, and we have got Manchester United next week.
"Arguably three of those will realistically be up there at the top of the league and we had Liverpool in there as well. I was very surprised to hear [about Manchester United's 6-1 defeat at Old Trafford].
"Maybe people will give us more credit for the way we went to Man City and how we played instead of saying we were negative and we didn't do this and we didn't do that."
While Moyes was relieved, Fulham manager Martin Jol was left bemoaning defensive lapses. Everton took a third-minute lead after Royston Drenthe hit an audacious shot but it looked liked Fulham had earned a share of the spoils thanks to substitute Bryan Ruiz's exquisite chip three minutes after coming on.
"There was a big contradiction between the first minute and the last," he said. "We had to change it in the second half after Drenthe, who has probably never played on the right before, scored a goal in the first couple of minutes.
"We fought ourselves back into it and in the second half the equaliser from Bryan Ruiz should have been enough to win this game.
"It is not about possession or playing better now, it is about chances. We really thought we could have a result but we didn't."
Source: PA
