Everton skipper, http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Phil-Neville-c29904, praised the Toffees defence for keeping Queens Park Rangers at bay, despite the team being down to ten men.
The Goodison Park outfit managed to hold on to a 1-1 draw at the Loftus Road Stadium on Sunday, although they have to deal with the suspension of http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Steven-Pienaar-c34208 for a good portion of the second half.
The South African International was issued marching orders for his second bookable offence, providing an opportunity for the hosts to make their extra man count.
However, despite their flurry of attacks in the closing stages, http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Rangers-c40314 attackers at bay and further prolonged Mark Hughes agony, who is still searching for his first win of the season.
The draw was enough to keep Everton at the fourth place, but could not lift the London-based team from the bottom of the table.
Although the Toffees would have been fancying a win before the start of the game, given how things how transpired for them so far, Neville expressed his satisfaction over the result.
The 35-year old admitted that his side were given a tough run for the money by the home team, but praised the performance of the defenders to help them squeeze out a draw despite being a man down.
“I think with Steven Pienaar getting sent off it was backs-to-the-wall - we knew QPR were going to be fighting for their lives today, they needed the points,” he told the reporters.
“I think we can play better but I think today we showed other qualities. Today was always going to be a game where our centre-backs were so important, and the two centre backs and two full-backs were rocks today.”
Everton have lost just one out of their last 17 league matches. They will next play bitter rivals, http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Liverpool-c39809, at Goodison Park this Sunday.
The midfielder claimed that their performance against the Hoops has lifted the confidence of the entire unit.
He said that the team were going into the match against the Reds with a positive frame of mind and have got the belief to get the http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Job-c18684 done.
“It's probably the first time this season we've really had to dig in and sacrifice a lot of our attacking play so we go into next week's derby [with Liverpool] full of confidence,” he added.
Liverpool recorded three wins against http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Everton-c39043 last season.
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