Sharpys top lip
Player Valuation: £60m
DAVID MOYES is hoping the progress his side has made this season will help attract his top targets to the club this summer.
Everton are one point away from securing UEFA Cup football for a second successive season ahead of the final game of the season at home to Newcastle on Sunday.
That would secure a fifth-place finish in a campaign that has already yielded the club’s highest points total of the Premier League era and also featured a Carling Cup semi-final and their best European run for 23 years.
Manager Moyes now wants those achievements to act as a magnet to potential new players in the close season as he looks to bolster the numbers in his squad.
“We have a responsibility to get good players in and we expect to,” said Moyes. “Players who want to play in games like the semi-final of the League Cup and in Europe.
“If we can add those kinds of players to the ones we have got hopefully we will do as well again and maybe even better.
“It’s an exciting group we have here and relatively young for all the games we have experienced. But we will add to it.”
Chelsea midfielder Steve Sidwell is one transfer target already identified but with loan signings Manuel Fernandes, Thomas Gravesen and Anthony Gardner plus goalkeeper Stefan Wessels not earmarked for permanent deals, Moyes is badly in need of summer squad strengthening.
The strains on the current group of players have taken their toll in recent games, with only one win from their last seven in the Premier League threatening their chances of automatically securing another European campaign.
Moyes, however, feels that wherever Everton finish up can’t detract from the quality of football his side has shown throughout the season.
And he is confident the usual qualities of team spirit and will to win will carry them to the result they need on Sunday.
“We have been terrific,” said Moyes. “We have tried to play better football and we have performed well. There was a period in the season when I was quite relaxed, I wasn’t jumping up and down as much.
“The players have all worked really hard for each other and on Sunday they will be really determined. If we have that it’s a good place to start.”
Although the rigours of cup runs on the domestic and European fronts appear to have taken their toll in recent matches, Moyes is insistent that the extra workload has, in the long term, had a positive affect on his side.
He added: “For the first half of the season we worked fantastically well and the players did great. The games came thick and fast and that helped us, playing more regularly we improved, it made a big difference.
“From the moment we won in Kharkiv in the UEFA Cup, the players became much better from that point. They all improved, enjoyed it and worked really hard for each other. “It’s a very good group to work with.”
Moyes was speaking at the third annual end of season awards dinner at St George’s Hall last night.
Joleon Lescott swept the board in terms of the main honours, taking the Player of the Season prize and winning Players’ Player of the Year for the second successive season.
Meanwhile Mikel Arteta has had undergone surgery to try and address his stomach problem.
The Spanish midfielder began suffering with the problem before Christmas and has since been playing despite the pain.
Arteta had the operation in Barcelona earlier this week, and it is expected he will be fit for pre-season training when the Everton squad return in July.
Everton head physio Mick Rathbone said: “Mikel, in Barcelona, yesterday had a minor bit of surgery to release some of the tension around the muscles.”
Lets just hope we get 5th spot, so we can go a get some really good players (You know the nxt step)
Some of the player linked with us are fantastic, but with out doubt. We'd have to provied Europian football.
