Intresting stuff in the post this morning:
“The continuity is why the club is where we are now, the club has kept the manager, the manager has got the players understanding what is required.
“We have good characters here. We have tried to add the one or two every years and some drop off at the bottom.
“If other teams spend lots of money then it will be very hard for us. I’m just looking to try and get our squad stronger and keep the players we have got.
“We have been planning for a long time. The job of a manager never stops just because on Sunday the season ends.
“I will go and sit on a beach for a week or two and try and do nothing but then it will be back to work.
“We’re all quite optimistic about what we have as a team and we will see if we can be one of the underdogs and come from behind as we have done in several other seasons.
“Sometimes clubs sign players and it makes you a bit deflated, but you have to find a different way of competing.
“We lost Joleon (Lescott) with a week to go and brought three players in during the last week with that money,” says the Goodison manager. “We had to integrate them quickly, notwithstanding Jags, Mikel, Yak and Victor not being fit for the start of the season.
“The changes we made last year were very late and we only brought Fellaini and Saha last season really.
“I don’t need to sell before I buy. I’m not madly saying we need to buy. Sure, I’ll try and get some players in and that’ll be at the lower end of the market to get those players in.
“I’d like to get a top striker in, but how much do they cost? That would be the problem.
“People will be interested in our players and they should be, they are good players. I have no problem with that at all.
“That’s part of what we do here. We bring players in, we work with them, we try to give them opportunities and now maybe it’s a case of us looking for them to give us a little bit back.
“That’s why we were disappointed with Joleon. We didn’t think it was his time to get up and leave Everton.”
“The signings have come very late and I don’t think that will change this summer.”
“That’s what you do as a manager. And I think we have, there are a lot of clubs around us who would say we have a good group of players.”
And when asked for his opinion on the season, he says: “Mixed is the obvious answer. It was not a good start but a good ending, so it’s been okay.
“We were against a group of good teams who had spent heavily to finish above us after we had finished fifth the previous two seasons, and it was always going to be hard with the injuries we had.
“The players have played really well but I look at those last 10 games and there have been some draws which didn’t help. We got a goal in the last minute against Fulham and Blackburn but we also lost late goals against the likes of Aston Villa.
“Overall we will be pretty disappointed to finish eighth but if you look at all the predictions before the season we finished where most people put us.”
Of Portsmouth’s campaign, Moyes adds: “Portsmouth have done terrific getting to the Cup final with the problems they have got and it’s credit to Avram Grant and his team who have been able to keep it all together.
“It’s a tough game and their players have got a Cup final to look forward to. My players have not got that.
“It’s hard for any club who have got £138m debt and it really shouldn’t have been allowed to get to that situation.”
