West Hamv 0 Everton 2:There was a time when finishing fourth would have been not so much the least of Everton's ambitions as no ambition at all. But Goodison rather got left behind in the Premier League gold rush and breaking up the elite quartet at the top for a second time in four seasons would now be a considerable feat for David Moyes and his workmanlike team.
As the programme nears its halfway point the signs are promising. Since losing controversially at home to Liverpool, when they had two men sent off, Everton have won five games out of seven with the other two drawn; in all competitions they have won 10 in 12. Saturday's victory at Upton Park left less to chance than their League Cup win on the same ground three nights earlier and was achieved through the familiar mixture of defensive prudence and attacking opportunism that has characterised the latest surge.
Having withstood consistent pressure for much of the first period when West Ham played intelligent, inventive football and might have scored two or three, Everton grabbed the lead on the stroke of half-time with Yakubu Ayegbeni's fifth goal in three matches in eight days. Thereafter they easily dealt with West Ham's increasingly ragged attempts to draw level and completed the win in stoppage time when Andrew Johnson came off the bench to score spectacularly on the break.
Moyes gives as little away verbally as his defenders do on the pitch but he is confident of Everton's ability to earn themselves another chance in the Champions League. "People say 'Can we break into the top four?'," he declared, "but the truth is that it has already happened. When we did it three seasons ago people said it was a blip, so we have to do it again. This is probably the best squad I have had and they are probably playing their best football, but they still have to beat the squad that finished fourth and that will take some doing."
Like Portsmouth and others, Everton will lose crucial players to the African Cup of Nations in the new year, among them Yakubu, who is in prolific form, and Joseph Yobo, who gave a masterful performance at the heart of the defence.
Moyes has sound back-up in Johnson and Joleon Lescott but the two Nigerians are an important part of the strength that runs through the middle of the team. This is something West Ham are still striving to achieve. Alan Curbishley's squad continues to be beset by frequent injuries and after the latest defeat the West Ham manager was about as cheerful as the Book of Job.
"Our injuries are into double figures again," he said. "We are playing players who are only partly fit. It's so frustrating. Possible signings in the transfer window are something we've got to discuss, but with so many players not available it is very difficult to see where you start."
With Scott Parker's shrewd use of space complemented by the drive of Hayden Mullins and subtlety of Nolberto Solano, West Ham achieved several fluent movements that saw Dean Ashton and Carlton Cole linking well up front. Freddie Ljungberg, Ashton and Parker each had chances that were saved or missed by a whisker. Then Cole, with a hip injury, had to come off at half-time and the attacking threat was lost.
