After a disappointing home defeat to Newcastle, Everton midfielder Mikel Arteta has issued a rallying call to his team-mates conceding that the performance against the Geordies was simply not up to scratch. The stand-in captain during Phil Neville’s absence acknowledged that the Goodison favourites were second best.

‘The first half was really poor and not the standard that we want to set at the club. Then we were chasing the game again.’ Without a win so far in the 2010/11 campaign, David Moyes’ side are beginning to worry their fans and Arteta knows where their concerns come from. ‘I don’t think anybody can be happy and proud of what we have done’ he said, ‘We need to get up now, we need to improve. I think we’ve been lacking a bit of that in the last few games.’

Moyes himself refused to pick out individuals saying ‘I thought the whole team didn’t function. A lot of our players didn’t perform. It was a team thing; it was just a lacklustre team performance from start to finish.’ Clearly those who booed the team off the Goodison Park pitch agreed with him the Toffees, perhaps surprisingly, face the early weeks of the Premier League season looking up and not