A header from Phil Jagielka after 62 minutes was enough to keep them fourth, ahead of Aston Villa and Liverpool.

If Everton do enter the Champions League as the fourth-best team in England, the world will realise that the Premier League - beyond Manchester United, Arsenal and Chelsea - is ordinary .

At least Moyes is not trying to fool anyone.

He said: 'You can say it was an ugly win and I told the players they must play better. We got there in the end, and I didn't think the result was wrong.'

Everton defied the odds to clinch a top-four finish in the 2004-05 season, and Moyes said: 'Chelsea are too strong for us to think about catching them.

'We face a big enough challenge, as it is, to stay ahead of the rest of those teams around us in the table.'

Moyes left Nigerian striker Ayegbeni Yakubu out of his squad, in addition to slapping a £80,000 (S$220,000) fine on him, following the player's late return from the African Nations Cup.

The manager said: 'I don't know whether missing this game will be the end of Yakubu's punishment. I have not decided on that yet.

'But James Vaughan was excellent for us when he came on in the second-half, and he has a brilliant attitude.

'He's getting stronger, he's getting quicker, and there's still a lot of technical things to put into him because he missed over a year of football with injuries.'

Those included a severed artery and a dislocated shoulder. But, perhaps, the luck is turning for a striker who does not turn 20 until August.

Vaughan, of course, usurped Wayne Rooney's position as the youngest scorer in Everton's history.

While he does not have Rooney's potential, he has something about him, and it is not inconceivable the two might one day be teammates in the England squad.

As for Reading, it was their seventh straight defeat, and it landed them in the bottom three.

'I really thought we deserved something from the game but, then again, I think that every week, even when we're rubbish,' manager Steve Coppell said.

'It was our best performance for some time, and I'm very confident that, next season, we will be in the Premier League.'

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE