Former long-serving Everton manager David Moyes admitted his old side were unfortunate after a double strike in stoppage time secured a 3-1 win for West Ham United at Goodison Park.

The Hammers relied on a string of smart saves from goalkeeper Alphonse Areola, including one from the penalty spot, to come from behind and secure all three points as Beto‘s header was cancelled out by efforts from Kurt Zouma, Toumas Soucek and Edson Alvarez.

Moyes said: “Look, to come here and win, I think the result was harsh on Everton but our goalkeeper four or five outstanding saves.

“But we scored three goals at Everton and Everton don’t concede too many. We scored four in midweek against Brentford so we’ve done the job.

“I think Premier League teams and games are really tight at the moment, I don’t think there’s an awful between the teams. We’ve just gone through six or seven weeks where very little has gone for us.

“Today, I don’t know if it’s the right word to say it went for us, but the keeper made saves which he’s there to do, so I have to say I’m thrilled with the win, it was a wee bit of a throwback but I really enjoyed it.”

The 60-year-old Scot, who was in charge of the Blues between, 2002-13, added: “We’ve had a difficult period, we’ve won a couple of games back-to-back but we’re still hanging in there. I thought we had to hang in a wee bit today, we needed to be resilient a couple of times when the crowd got right behind the Everton team when they were 1-0 up.

“We had to find a way of staying with it and we just about did it and no more. The keeper made a save, we went up the pitch and scored from a corner kick to equalise, it was a really tight game and the small margins went in our favour today.

“If you look, we changed the players’ positions a little bit as the game goes on, trying to find ways of being better and making more chances. We found it tough I have to say for the 20 minutes at the start of the second half especially but we rode that a little bit, grew into it and did enough to get a few goals.”

Moyes made the point of going over to congratulate Areola after the final whistle and asked what he said to his goalkeeper, replied: “I said to him that he probably made the difference and he did. His performance was terrific.

“I know a lot of goalkeepers get praised for different things like their use of the ball etcetera but I think most people from the era I come from, it’s the ones who save it with their hands and stop the ball going into the net and I thought he did that really well.

“I think he’s got incredible spring which people might not see in him. He’s got athleticism which is probably as good as anyone at the club, I think it’s his genes with what he’s got and where he comes from, I think all those things play a part in it.

“He’s just really good, he pulls off some terrific saves. He’s been very good for us, there’s bits we’d like to improve on like distribution and different things but he’s done great for us since he came into the team.”

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