David Moyes said Everton’s first half display against Arsenal left him “angry” - but praised his players for responding after the break.
The Blues struggled during the first half, falling behind to Leandro Trossard’s strike and almost conceding a second when the Belgium international broke through in stoppage time. Moyes described the performance as ‘slow and sluggish’ but galvanised his side into a second half fightback.
Asked for his thoughts after Iliman Ndiaye’s second half penalty earned Everton a point, he referenced the difficulty of facing Arsenal just days after the narrow defeat to Premier League leaders Liverpool and said: “I’m really satisfied. We didn't start well but we showed a little bit more in the second half which got us back in the game.
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"It's been a difficult week, the team at the top of the Premier League, the team second in the league, and I think we've given them both decent games.”
Asked what he had learned about his side in a game in which he provided the first starts under him for Tim Iroegbunam and Nathan Patterson, he said: “I'm beginning to understand them a lot more. I think they've got great resilience, the players here. They stick at it, they're very committed.
“We were all disappointed and angry with each other at half-time because we started slowly, sluggishly and made mistakes which we didn't think we would do.
"So we tried to sort that out, tactically we just made a slight change in how we were going to try and press Arsenal because we'd found it a struggle in the first half to get the ball off them at times but we got a bit better in the second half and great credit we were able to get a point out of it.”
Everton’s penalty came after Myles Lewis-Skelly tussled with Jack Harrison minutes after the restart. Speaking after the game, Arsenal boss Mikel Arteta said he had watched the incident 15 times and did not think it was a foul.
Asked for his view, Moyes joked he had not yet seen a replay so “I couldn't tell you if it was a penalty or not”.
