Moyes hails magical Mirallas

Everton 3 Reading 1

This victory, albeit against relegation strugglers, was initially about getting back on track after a month without a Premier League win, but the form of his talented trio Marouane Fellaini, Steven Pienaar and Kevin Mirallas was just as uplifting.

All three scored, with Pienaar’s peach of a second sent hurtling past Reading’s third-choice keeper Stuart Taylor at unstoppable speed after Fellaini had plundered his 12th of the campaign with a forceful header, the pick of the bunch. But it was Mirallas, his other Belgian, who gave Moyes most cause to smile.

Here suddenly was the player Everton’s manager saw as the extra ingredient to spice up the challenge when he was recruited in the summer from Olympiakos, only to have his season hampered by a hamstring injury that defied recovery for too long a spell.

Mirallas exchanged passes with Pienaar before stroking Everton’s third past Taylor, but his overall game put a glint in the eye of Moyes, targeting a Wembley return as well as Everton’s traditional strong finish to the league campaign.

“Mirallas was a very different player than the one who’s been operating in recent weeks,” purred the manager. “He needed to get his fitness back. What we saw was a player who looked like he can score goals and create goals, and he didn’t look like that previously.

“He looks like he’s got a goal in him and that gives players a real lift. That’s really important because we’ve needed someone to get on the end of things.

” Things aren’t going [Nikica] Jelavic’s way at present — so to have Kevin providing that threat is really important.

“We’ll need that for sure if we are going to continue our form this season. If he can continue that, it will give us the edge we are looking for. His goal against Oldham in midweek did him good... some of the things he tried today were audacious, and it was good to see him return to that level of confidence.”

It fell short of being a perfect day for Moyes, though, as skipper and England centre half Phil Jagielka had to be booked in for surgery to repair the ankle damaged by Adam Le Fondre’s third-minute challenge, punished by a yellow card from referee Taylor but sure to keep Jagielka out for the Cup tie with Wigan and the following week’s visit of champions Manchester City.

“He actually needs surgery to stitch up the injury, because the cut is all the way down to the bone,” revealed Moyes.

“That tells you how bad it is. It was severe. I will always certainly stand up and protect my players, and I didn’t think they got the protection today.”

Brian McDermott admitted Reading will need the rub of the green to avoid taking the drop in May, and the beleaguered manager isn’t sure that has happened so far.

He was sure his team should have had a penalty for handball against Sylvain Distin and claimed handling offences by Wigan and Newcastle had also escaped punishment.

Substitute Hal Robson-Kanu’s header from Ian Harte’s cross was far too late to spark a comeback, while McDermott bemoaned Le Fondre’s shot against the angle at 0-0.

“When you go to places like Everton, the margins are very small.

“We need everything to be on our side, we need the ref to get those decisions right and we also need to play well.”