Jelavic earns praise from Moyes

Everton boss David Moyes has hailed Nikica Jelavic after the striker netted his first goal for the club in a 1-0 win over Tottenham.

The Croatian made his first start for the Toffees, after struggling with injury since his January move from Rangers, and scored what proved to be the winner in the first half at Goodison Park on Saturday.

Moyes praised the finish and believes that the forward’s quality is something the club have lacked this season.

“We’ve missed somebody who could come in and make something out of nothing,” he said.

“It’s nearly not a chance, he takes it early and hopefully someone like that will get us a few goals out of nothing.

“Ozzy (Leon Osman) did brilliantly to set him up and he took it early and finished it great.”

The Scot also singled out a late miss by former Everton striker Louis Saha as a pivotal moment in the match and had kind words for Spurs.

“It was a big miss by Louis at that time but Tottenham are a really good team and we had to play really well to stay in it and we did,” he said.

“It was partly our own downfall at the start of the second half where every time we got it we gave the ball away and gave Tottenham encouragement to keep coming forward and throwing more men forward.”

“In the end we had to try and say ‘well if we can’t keep the ball we’re going to have to try keep you out’ and thankfully we did that.”

Tottenham counterpart Harry Redknapp was disappointed in his team’s performance but urged his players to ‘keep believing’ after their third straight loss.

Leading fourth-placed Arsenal by a margin of 10 points just two weeks ago, the gap could be as little as one point come Monday night, leaving their automatic Champions League qualification hopes hanging by a thread.

“We’ve lost away to Arsenal, away to Everton and at home to Man United, they’re always going to be tough games,” Redknapp said.

“Two of those games we didn’t deserve to lose – today and against Man United – but that’s football.”

“I didn’t say (Spurs would be at the top), other people might have said that but I have enough common sense and knew enough about football to realise that wasn’t the case.”

“I said all along 10 points can evaporate quickly and I looked at the fixtures knew that going away to Arsenal, Man United, Everton and Chelsea they are tough games and we knew it could turn.”

“We’re still in a better position than the other teams so we just have to keep going, keep believing and we’ll go again.”

Redknapp feels his team were hard done by after an improved performance in the second half, with them coming close to levelling late when Louis Saha’s close range shot was parried onto the post by Tim Howard in added time.

“They got the goal but it wasn’t as if our keeper had been overworked but second half we picked the pace up and got after them and it was one-way traffic. We hardly came out of their half in the second half,” he said.

“We had a great chance at the end which I thought Louis might have scored. He might have thought he was offside but he wasn’t but it’s how it goes. You win some that you don’t deserve to win and sometimes you get beat when you don’t deserve to lose.”