Everton boss David Moyes doesn't want his contract situation to be used as an excuse for poor form.

While Moyes accepts his decision to delay his contract talks until the summer is something of a gamble if Everton finish the season poorly, he is determined they must deal with the expectations raised by their strong first half of the campaign and keep their silverware dream alive.

He said: "What I've said is I want to see, I just want to wait and see where we are, so yeah, maybe it could be seen as me taking a gamble, but I don't want it to be seen as us making any excuses here over my contract or the transfer window.

"We have no excuses here, we try and take it as men if we can. Yeah we have a moan at the referees, but we try and take what we get on the chin and move on, and try to use it to make us better."