Moyes bemoans Everton giving away two dreadful goals, comments on Alcaraz & Mykolenko
08/02/2025 18:54
The Blues have been knocked out of the FA Cup by Bournemouth, their third defeat to the Cherries this season
A much-improved second half performance where Everton laid siege to the Bournemouth goal was not enough to make up for a positively dreadful first half when James Tarkowski and company in the backline gifted the visitors two goals in a 2-0 defeat. The loss sees the Blues exit the FA Cup at the Fourth Round stage for the second year running, and ensures there will be no more cup action in Goodison Park's final season.
Speaking after the game, manager David Moyes was not pleased by what his side did early in the game.
"Disappointing start to the game. We gave away two dreadful goals."
On his substitutions in the second half, the manager added -
"I'm pleased with the way they responded in the second half. I'm pleased with the subs, they all had an impact. I was really pleased with Carlos and Tim coming on. I was pleased with Alcaraz, he played well. We knew about him when he was at Southampton"
"We hit the post three times, had one cleared off line. It just wasn't our day. We just needed one of the chances to go for us and it didn't."
Is it better to be out of the cup so that the threadbare squad could focus on the Premier League survival?
"Maybe. The most important thing for us is to make sure we're a Premier League club. It would have been nice to get to a cup final - it wasn't like we gave it up.
"Now our focus is totally back on the Premier League and trying to do what we need to do."
The crowd fell silent very early on when Bournemouth fashioned a chance right after kickoff, and then never really picked up again until halfway through the second half.
"Goodison is somewhere I've gotten very used to over the years. There will be people who know Goodison more than I'll ever know. A special stadium. On its day it can have an incredible atmosphere and be intimidating. We're hoping the new stadium will give us all that. But before we talk about the new stadium we have to make sure we're a Premier League club."
Everton persisted on playing out the back despite Bournemouth's fierce press, and to their credit they got away well when they did, but when they didn't, the ball ended up in the back of their own net.
"Bournemouth pressed us really well which we knew. We were really aware of it. But we made a couple of poor decisions with the ball."
Left back Vitalii Mykolenko was held out as a precautionary measure after tweaking his calf earlier in the day.
"He felt his calf this morning and we had the chance to change it so it was easy enough done. I've no idea about the outcome but it felt a wee bit tight."
