Moyes salutes his peers

Everton boss David Moyes has hailed the work of Paul Lambert and Brendan Rodgers after the pair guided their teams to Premier League safety.

Both Lambert’s Norwich and Rodgers’ Swansea were hotly tipped for relegation before the beginning of the season but have confounded critics.

Moyes is familiar with working on a low budget and he lauded both clubs for how they have worked under tight financial constraints.

“The teams who come up are not automatic favourites to go back down and you’ve seen that with the likes of Swansea and Norwich this season,” Moyes told reporters.

“They have some momentum from getting promoted and what it says is the teams who come out of the Championship are in a financially better condition than those at the bottom end of the Premier League, which allows them to buy some players in.

“Some younger coaches come in with some different styles and are brave with what they do and that is great credit to them.

“I don’t think the managers are doing things a great deal differently; I just think they are coming in with fresh ideas.

“They are young and hungry and want to be successful and want to have longevity in the game so they know they have to get results and play in a style which will give them that chance.

“You can see what Swansea have done and Paul Lambert has brought his team up and played three or four styles at different times.

“It has been a little bit of a surprise how well they have done but Paul has done a brilliant job in bringing them up and they have taken some big scalps.”

Everton face Lambert’s side on Saturday and he accepted that the younger generation of coaches are a threat to any manager who gets too comfortable in their job.

“I have always said if you are in this job you can’t put your feet under the table, you have to find new ways of doing it right,” Moyes added.

Everton will face derby foes Liverpool next weekend in an FA Cup semi-final at Wembley but the Goodison Park manager insists he would not look beyond the Norwich match.

Moyes said: “To win the next game is the most important one, it always is.

“They are playing for their places just now, whether it be a semi-final or a league game, they have to play for their places to be in the team and it has been like that all year.

“The important thing is to keep the momentum going into the Norwich game and we did that with a win against West Brom.

“We have two difficult games Saturday and Monday and if we want to keep ourselves in a decent league position we are going to have to try to pick up some points.