David Moyes has underlined his commitment to bringing in British players as Everton maintain their challenge for a Champions League spot.

The Toffees started their last match against West Ham with an entire English defence and five English players in all, in sharp contrast to some Barclays Premier League teams who have only a handful of homegrown players in their squads.

Moyes, though, admits he will continue to actively recruit British players as the Merseyside club look to establish themselves as European challengers.

He told : “Definitely. I think that is important. When we took over at Everton it was to avoid being in the bottom six; now our buying is to be in the top six so our buying had changed a little bit. The players that we brought in to keep us out of the bottom six have gone on to prove that they can all be part of the top six. So we mustn’t not look at that market and I am very keen to keep bringing in British boys. That’s why we put a lot of effort into scouting in the UK to see if we can find the right players.”

The 45-year-old has also promoted a lot of players from the Everton youth system – notably Wayne Rooney and current team members Leon Osman and James Vaughan.

He used the example of Manchester United, who brought through David Beckham, the Neville brothers, Paul Scholes and Ryan Giggs together, as a model of success for promoting from within.

“(That is why) I am very keen to have young players consistently come through and as we well know the Manchester United group that came through 10 years ago were well known and that helped their football club,” Moyes continued.

“I keep saying that if you want a game of football in the first team and you are good, we are liable to put you in the team young and early and try and get you through and we have done that.”

Moyes has also proved adept at identifying lower league talent such as Phil Jagielka and Joleon Lescott and smoothing their transformation into top-flight players.

Something he puts down to success when manager at Preston.

“When I was managing at Preston our shopping tended to be in the Premier League reserve teams,” the Scot added.

“The knowledge that I had from being at Preston helped me in that and there are a lot of good players out there and we all need opportunities.”

Everton face a potentially decisive Merseyside derby this weekend at Anfield with rivals Liverpool two points ahead in the fourth Champions League spot. Moyes believes Everton are now in a position of equality with the Reds.

“For many years Everton haven’t really been able to compete as closely as we’d like but we are now on the shoulders of Liverpool and a couple of other teams and we have got to try and stay there.”