Everton boss David Moyes hailed the impact made by Phil Jagielka and Mikel Arteta after their late season returns.

Jagielka started the final 12 games after returning as a substitute in Portugal against Sporting Lisbon, while Arteta, who was back the previous month, scored six goals in his last eight appearances.

"Jags and Mikel were incredible," said Moyes. "We can rely on Jags to defend one-on-one or two-on-two because he's comfortable and he's good at it, and that means we don't always need extra players back. Also, I think Jags made Sylvain Distin better.

"We'd started to recover a little bit before Mikel came back but he came in and said: 'I'm really going to show you how it's done'.

"He made us really play, gave us something else and also scored goals from midfield. He got six for us in an important period. So, not only was his football good, but his goals helped us as well."