David Moyes urges a wafer-thin Everton squad not to snap

Neville may yet well play through the pain barrier for his team in the Black Country - and Moyes hopes that resilient attitude will rub off on his colleagues, who are looking to get their season up and running.

It would be easy for some to start wallowing in self pity in the dog-eat-dog world of Premier League football, such an attitude will guarantee only one thing - a resounding defeat.

And that is something Everton experienced on their last visit to this venue. Back in November 2005, they have been on the end of a poor refereeing decision in the first half but that did not contribute to West Brom blowing the Blues out of the water.

The final scoreline that miserable night was 4-0 but anyone who fears a similar outcome would do well to think again. Moyes might acknowledge that he is facing a huge challenge but he knows his players expect him to provide leadership.

"I'm not down," said Moyes, who has been forced to rule James Vaughan out of the equation as the young striker is still not fit.

"I've got to get a team that will compete, challenge and have a go against the top teams.

"It was this time last year when most people were saying Everton could be the team that's going to do it. I'm not hearing people saying that this year. So why is that?

"Maybe I now have to look to bring in five or six players which would cost me no money. I will be responsible for bringing in those five or six. The team will always be my responsibility. I need to get a team that wins and a team that gets results.

"I won't compromise my ambition. I believe my style will hopefully continue to get results and wins, with whatever team I put out. I won't compromise what I expect from whichever players I bring in. It's up to them to respond to that."

In his mind, however, Moyes knows the next few weeks will go a long way to determining what Everton can hope to achieve this season and it could be that before they really click into gear, things will have passed them by.

Even still, Moyes will not budge from his stance of wanting to bring the best possible players to Goodison Park and he still thinks progress can be made.

"Everybody has known where I have wanted to take the club. Maybe my standards are high, but I want the best for Everton," said Moyes.

"I recognised when we finished fifth what standard of player we needed to get to the next level and the cost it would take to get them in.

"It's taken me five or six years to get to this situation. We had stopped becoming a yo-yo club because in the end we had got roughly 14-15 players we think we could work with, and wanted to add another 4-5 to that number to make sure that we could think about challenging."

That, though, is for the future. Today the main priority is beating West Brom - young guns Jack Rodwell and Jose Baxter will have a chance to continue their footballing education - but victory will not be secured if the same mistakes are made as last week.

"We want to play much better than we did last week," said Moyes. "We didn't play well enough and we need to make sure we get a result. I thought on the day Blackburn were much better than us and I couldn't have any complaints.

"But, saying that, I thought the young lads have done terrifically well.

"Jack Rodwell has been determined to take his opportunity. He has got a long way to go but in in two or three years' time, you can see he is going to be an outstanding player."

Outstanding is a way to describe Mikel Arteta's talent and after a pleasing performance against Blackburn, he intends to lead by example.

"The young lads really responded well," said Arteta.

"We could have won last week had we been a bit more solid but that is football. We have got to keep going but if everyone stays down it is going to be more difficult.

"If everyone waits for something to happen, it is not going to. We need to make it happen. Hopefully we can put up the kind of performance we know are capable of and get our first win."