David Moyes: Contract delay may have affected poor Everton start
DAVID MOYES admits his ongoing contract situation may have contributed to Everton's poor start to the season.
Saturday's derby defeat was the Blues' third successive home league setback and they have also crashed out of the Carling Cup.
Moyes, who has a year left on his current deal, confirmed in July he had opened talks with chairman Bill Kenwright about a new contract but he still hasn't put pen to paper.
Asked whether he thought the issue is spreading uncertainty throughout the club, he said: "Possibly, yes, and it is something that needs to be addressed.
"I think both parties are aware that it has to be sorted and hopefully there will be some news soon.
"It's not a matter of compromise, I've been sitting waiting on it coming back from the club for quite a while now. But I am not unsettled by it personally, not at all.
"What happens is when the manager's position is uncertain then uncertainty can come into the club.
"I accept that, but that is not the reason for today's performance or the ones before. I agree it doesn't help the situation."
Moyes admitted he is worried about his side's current slump but vowed to work tirelessly to get them back on track ahead of Thursday's crunch UEFA Cup clash against Standard Liege.
"It's the same group of players in the main who finished fifth last year but our performances haven't matched that," he said.
"I am fully aware of that and I'm doing everything I can to try and correct it.
"You are going to have periods where confidence is low, you are not playing well and can't find a winning formula. My job is to find that.
"We've not played well at the start of the season. We've had players returning late and late recruitment but I've got to get that right."
Moyes was left to rue Tim Cahill's first half miss and the defensive lapse which gave Fernando Torres so much space to open the scoring.
"We wanted to be harder to beat than we have been and I thought for the first 45 minutes we did that," he said.
"We defended strongly when we had to and I think we had the better chances in the first half.
"Tim Cahill had that chance at the back post and then I'm not convinced there was a foul on their goalkeeper, all be it Jamie Carragher kicked it off the goal line.
"It was disappointing in the end to lose two goals early in the second half.
"For the first we gave it away very easily in our own half. Initially I thought we had defended it quite well but the concentration levels were not what they should have been and Torres was very clinical.
"For most of the game we competed well, the boys never gave in and I have to give them credit for that. Today you saw the difference ã100milllion can make."
Moyes also leapt to the defence of Cahill and insisted he didn't deserve to see red late on for his challenge on Xabi Alonso.
"I thought it warranted a yellow card, not a red one," he said.
"We will have to ask the referee to have a look at it again. I certainly don't think it was the worst tackle in the game.
"My initial thought was he had sent him off because Tim hadn't gone up to him but that would have warranted two yellow cards.
"I don't think anyone in the ground thought it would be a red card for that tackle."
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Well then Moyes if you think the contract uncertainty has affected the team do something about it,it's no good saying that it's affecting the team and you have been sitting on it waiting for it to be signed pull your finger out and either sign or go.Why oh why are we putting out a 4-5-1 formation at home this is the reason we struggled against the rs how many times shall we shout at the top of our voices let the opposition worry about us at home not worry about them,no shots on target at home with the quality strikers we have available to us is just disgraceful.I think the rs would have been petrified at seeing Saha and the Yak lining up against them from the off but instead they had Yakubu who everybody knows can't play upfront by himself and i am sick and tired of hearing Moyes saying it's up to him to sort out our leaky defence for 3 games now he has done nothing about it.And while i'm at it i don't know who is to blame for this but somebody has to shoulder the responsibility of bringing in players at the end of the transfer window and expecting them to gel with the team it very rarely happens Fellaini and Castillo may not look decent players and some might say ã15m is a waste of money but lets not judge the lad after a few games it's not their fault he did look quality against the rs.COYB lets see the real Everton against Liege.One final point on the Cahill sending off did anybody hear the absolute garbage that was coming out of that journalists mouth on the sunday supplement on sky saying Mike Riley sent him off because he ignored him and that he should have been sent off well i'm afraid if thats the truth then players are in for a tough time and we will see more players sent off each week than i don't know what, Mike Riley is there to make decisions and if he has sent Cahill off for the tackle fair enough everybody who has seen it since knows that it was never a sending off but if he has sent him off because he turned his back on him then this man should not be refereeing premiership matches because everytime a player gets given a foul against them they always walk away this respect the referee malarky has just given more referees the entitlement to think they are gods.Everbody should have either been talking about the bad mistakes(if your blue)or Torres goals(if your red)but instead we are talking about the referee again.