Blues took a 17th-minute lead at Goodison Park through Jean Beausejour's header but John Heitinga rifled in an equaliser 10 minutes before the interval and the Toffees looked by far the more likely side to find a winner in the second half. McLeish's men held on for the 1-1 draw, though, taking them up to 17th in the table, with West Ham dropping into the bottom three. "I think that is an apt way to describe it - a battling point," McLeish said. "We started very brightly and got the opening goal. Then the players showed that tremendous resilience that they have." He added: "We tried to be a little bit more predatory, but we never really had the composure in terms of the passing in the second half. "But sometimes you need to get points in an ugly fashion." Birmingham were forced into a substitution within the first 10 minutes as David Bentley came off with what McLeish confirmed was a groin problem. "He came in before the warm-up was finished saying that he felt a twinge but felt he could start, but clearly he wasn't okay," McLeish said. "So it will probably be a scan for him tomorrow and we'll know the extent on Friday." McLeish also revealed that Keith Fahey had missed the game due to a tight hamstring, which is not thought to be serious. Everton's Mikel Arteta was withdrawn around the same time as Bentley having sustained a hamstring injury of his own while in a chase with Sebastian Larsson. Asked how Arteta was, Toffees manager David Moyes said: "I don't know, I just saw him come off. "Obviously it looks like a hamstring injury but I haven't had a chat with the medical team yet to see what they think." Arteta has been in impressive form of late and was named captain for the night in the absence of another hamstring victim Phil Neville. Moyes - who has Marouane Fellaini and Tim Cahill on the sidelines as well - admitted the loss of the Spanish midfielder was a major setback. "It was a big blow for us because we needed some creativity and I knew that if we didn't have him, we would be struggling to create too much," Moyes said. "Leon Osman did, but we were struggling otherwise really to make anything happen." Everton dominated possession for most of the contest but Moyes felt his team did not show enough to deserve all three points. He said: "It was a bit frustrating. We didn't play well enough probably to win the game, but we had a few half chances."
