Leon Osman confident Everton can turn draws into wins

Midfielder Leon Osman admits Everton's run of draws has put a slight dampener on their flying start to the season, but remains confident they can find a solution to the stalemates.

David Moyes' 1-1 draw at home to Arsenal was their sixth in eight Barclays Premier League matches.

When the Toffees beat Southampton on September 29 they went second in the table, three points behind then-leaders Chelsea after six matches.

Since then they have won just once and slipped to sixth, 11 points off the top and four adrift of fourth-placed West Brom, having dropped points against the likes of QPR, Wigan, Reading and Norwich.

But Osman stressed the squad remained upbeat.

"Of course there is disappointment when you don't get three points because football is about winning," he said.

"It is football. It's not as if we've lost six out of eight games, we've been drawing.

"Most of the games we should probably have won had it not been for a mistake or a refereeing decision going in our favour.

"But we will stay positive, if we nick a goal in any of those games and we could be six or seven points better off.

"It is tight and a couple of wins will start you going in the right direction.

"We'll try and find a solution in the next few days and will look to start picking up wins in the next few weeks.

"After six draws in eight games we need to start turning them into wins if we want to finish high up the table."

It does not get any easier for Everton as they head to champions Manchester City on Saturday.

Osman believes they can take heart from the display against Arsenal, when they recovered from conceding a goal to Theo Walcott after only 52 seconds to equalise through Marouane Fellaini and then have justifiable claims for a penalty rejected.

"It was a good performance and I certainly felt we were the team pushing and creating the chances towards the end, but it is not great when you give a team like Arsenal a goal start," he added.

"Once that happens you have to pick yourselves up and brush yourselves down and I felt we did that and came back and played some good football.

"We are looking forward to the game against City.

"It is going to be difficult going to play the champions but we will be confident as we've had a reasonably good record there over the last few years (winning four of the last five).

"You know you are going to have to work hard as they are going to have long periods with the ball, but I feel we are developing as a team and we might have periods with the ball too.

"We feel we are progressing as a team but I am sure the media will judge where we are at."

Moyes accepts his side need to sharpen up in the final third if they are to prevent more draws, having scored just one goal a match for the last three fixtures, damaging their season further.

"It happens. It is probably not the Arsenal draw, that was a hard-fought draw," said the Scot.

"The players played really well and it was a deserved equaliser with the way we had played after going a goal behind.

"We just didn't get the second goal, which in truth we've been lacking in recent games."

PA