EVERTON manager David Moyes felt justice was done for his persevering side after they scored twice in the dying moments to beat Tottenham 2-1 at Goodison Park yesterday.

Trailing to Clint Dempsey’s deflected shot 14 minutes from the end, Steven Pienaar and Nikica Jelavic scored within 88 seconds of each other in the 90th minute and added time respectively to secure a deserved victory.

Moyes felt his side were well worth the victory, having dominated throughout and been denied what he though was a penalty for handball late in the first half.

“It is as good a finish as we’ve had,’’ Moyes said.

“We’ve had a few like that where we’ve lost and felt low so we were due one.

“I remember a season where we used to score late goals and win games 1-0 but recently it has not been the case.

“If Everton hadn’t won we’d have been saying ‘How not?’ because we played terrifically well, especially in the first half with Kevin Mirallas and Seamus Coleman.

“We just couldn’t find the final pass or touch to finish it off and Tottenham got better in the 15 minutes after halftime, but I thought we had grown into it again when they scored.

“Our poorest period was in the last ten minutes when we were changing players around and we had tried everything to get an opening, but they kept at it and we got it in the end.

“It can lift you, it shows the belief and persistence in keeping going and the players showed great character to keep going.

“I thought we had another difficult day (with the officials) with hardly a thing going for us, not a thing. So you have to win the games, you can’t rely on referee decisions going your way.

“We’ve not had any games where the referee has changed the game in Everton’s favour.’’ The win, extending Everton’s unbeaten Premier League run at home to 12 matches stretching back to March, lifted the Toffees back into the top four.

It is not a place which flatters them according to their manager, who had seen his side draw seven of their last nine to drop out of the top four.

“The position doesn’t shame the way the players have been playing, they have been doing that well,’’ he added.”But we could quite easily have slipped out and been in the bottom half of the league. It feels good today but we have to make sure we maintain that.’’ Tottenham boss Andre Villas- Boas, whose side have only kept one Premier League clean sheet away from home, was left to bemoan more late defensive frailties.

“It was a disappointing result bearing in mind we were leading taking the game into the last minute,’’ he said.

“It has been quite an adventure in the Premier League this season; if we count the number of results that have been going for us before the last minutes we would be first.”