It’s time to enter Big Four, says hardened Toffee Neville

EVERTON may have fallen short at the final hurdle in their bid to win a major trophy for the first time since 1995 but there is a growing sense at Goodison Park that they are well positioned to become the first club to finally break into the Premier League’s Big Four.

Captain Phil Neville admitted his team lost to the better side at Wembley despite scoring after only 25 seconds through Louis Saha but still described the campaign as a “miracle season” and focused quickly on the future.

He said: “Everyone knows the gap between fourth and the rest of the league is still a gulf. But of all the clubs in the Premiership, we have been the ones consistently pushing from below. That’s our aim.

“The manager is not going to accept just going for fifth place next season, he’s going to want to break into the top four. We want Champions League football and it’s that ambition that drives us on.

“Believe me, this team can only get better. We’ve got all our young players tied up on long contracts and we’ve got four big, big players coming back from injury.

“Losing an FA Cup Final at Wembley when all your supporters and family are down there is one of the most hurtful things that can happen to you in football but it’s something we need to recover from quickly because we should be proud of our achievements this season.”

Neville knows all the talk over the summer will be about Everton strengthening their squad and looking to find money to challenge the Big Four in the transfer market having finished fifth this year but he believes there is a strong enough team at Goodison Park to challenge for honours.

He said: “People keep asking what we need to turn ourselves into a top four side. Well I’ll tell you – we need Jagielka, we need Yakubu, we need Arteta, we need Anichebe.

“Those players are all injured and if we’d had them against Chelsea you can only imagine how much more powerful we’d have been.

“If they come back fighting fit in pre-season it will be like having four new signings. Couple that with the young lads coming through, then we won’t need that much.

“But I’ll leave that to the manager. The boss is always looking to improve, you can’t stand still in this game because there’s always teams below you want to take your place.”