David Moyes claims Everton are planning no further ahead than securing their Premier League status, with top-flight survival their priority.
Toffees boss looking to get to 40 points as quickly as possible
David Moyes claims Everton are planning no further ahead than securing their Premier League status, with top-flight survival their priority.
The Toffees have moved into mid-table over recent weeks and are only seven points worse off than Newcastle, who made a flying start to the season.
It appears as though a top-six challenge may be beyond them, but they are handily positioned to try and match their seventh-place finish from 2010/11.
Moyes, though, insists talk of top-half challenges can wait for now, with the club needing to double their tally and get to the 40-point mark before they can start setting loftier targets.
He said: "I can only look at our games and I am only looking to, first of all, get 40 points. Once I have got 40 points I will see what I can do after that.
"That has got to be the target for us just now and make sure we are not at the wrong end of the table."
Everton's next outing takes them to Sunderland on Boxing Day, and Moyes will be looking for his side to build on a welcome 1-0 victory over Swansea in their final fixture before Christmas.
Kick-start
Pressed on whether that result could represent a turning point in the Toffees' season, Moyes said: "I just see it as three vital points.
"The game was really tight and there wasn't a great deal in it.
"I thought we had the best of it and deserved to win the game, but there have been other games where teams have had one chance in the second half and it could have gone in.
"I thought we had chances in the first half and could have gone in one or two up and you could have been saying it was a more comfortable victory.
"But for us the games have been tight, so I don't know if it will kick-start anything at all. We won a couple of games a few weeks ago and we thought that might be the case.
"We have now got three away out of the next four games and that is tough. There is no point me saying this is the start and then finding we can't back it up."
