David Moyes praised a “great result” as Everton claimed successive victories over Newcastle United, securing a hard-fought 1-0 win at St James’ Park on Monday night — just four days after their 3-1 Carabao Cup triumph over the same opponents.
A tight first half produced few clear chances before Everton struck early in the second period. Tyrique George’s low drive squirmed under goalkeeper Lukáš Horníček, and Thierno Barry reacted sharply to stab home the loose ball for his fourth league goal of the season.
Moyes admitted that beating Newcastle twice in such a short space of time is “not an easy thing” at this level, but he was full of praise for his players.
“They are so good in what they do as they give everything they’ve got,” the Everton manager said. “They’re a brilliant group of players and they’ve had it tough as well. They want to keep winning and they’ve found it difficult with the way things have gone, but they’re pulling it out and doing their best to be in all the games.
“It’s never easy… we beat Newcastle on Thursday night and to beat them again today is not an easy thing to do for any club at this level. To come here and get a good win tonight was a great result for us.”
The victory ended a three-game winless streak in the Premier League, lifted Everton into seventh place, and delivered their first away league win of the campaign. Moyes noted that while his side had earned several creditable draws on the road, a victory had been missing.
“We’ve actually done quite well in some of the games getting draws in difficult away games, but we’ve not picked up a victory and last season we had a great run of results away from home. So I was hoping to pick it up tonight and thankfully we did — clean sheet and got the goal that counted.”
Newcastle manager Matthias Jaissle accepted responsibility for a disappointing display in which his side struggled to create clear openings. The Magpies’ frustration was compounded late on when Jacob Ramsey was shown two yellow cards in quick succession and sent off, leaving them 13th in the table.
“We need to analyse that now in detail,” Jaissle said. “It’s also clear that I have the responsibility and I also take that as the manager of this club, and we need to do things better. There were many things there, not only in possession, which was not on the level we expected to see.”