The 63-year-old claimed the team put in their best performance in his three-month reign in the second half. However, he accepted if they still had ambitions of a top-four finish they had to go on a run of four or five victories. Tim Cahill put the Toffees ahead in the 34th minute and Mikel Arteta added the second four minutes after the interval. Asked if his side were outplayed by Everton the Liverpool boss said: "That's very unfair. "We suffered at the hands of an early onslaught which you invariably do at Goodison but towards the end of the first half we started to even things out. "From what I saw I thought we dominated the second half totally. "I thought the shape of the team was good today, the quality of our passing and movement was good. "We didn't score goals and Everton did but I refuse to accept that we were in any way outplayed or any way inferior. "I watched the performance and the second half was as good as I saw a Liverpool team play under my management that is for sure." Liverpool have endured their worst start to a season since 1953-54, when they were relegated, and they remain rooted in 19th place. Hodgson, asked if the top four was out of reach, added: "There are 30 games to go, 90 points to play for, so we'd have to start doing something special I suppose. "But I don't know I would write that off necessarily. "What it would take is a really good run on the spin but I thought there were signs in the game today that the quality of football was there. "Who knows, we could get those four or five wins on the spin - that is what it is going to take." Liverpool have now not won in six matches in all competitions and Hodgson admitted, with only one league victory this season, the pressure was mounting. "We have taken six points from eight games and every game we don't win the pressure builds even more and that will affect people's confidence in the long run," he added. "The pressure mounts but I'm not trying to use that as an excuse." Liverpool were watched by new owner John W Henry, whose New England Sports Ventures completed a £300million buy-out this week. Unfortunately the players could not match the performance of their legal team, who successfully prevented former owners Tom Hicks and George Gillett blocking the sale. "The dream was we would come here on the back of new owners and win the game but there is no point in attempting to analyse dreams," Hodgson said. "This would have been the ideal opportunity to turn things around on the back of the positive entry of the new owners and to get a result here would have been Utopia." Everton manager David Moyes was delighted just to end a run of three successive league derby defeats. "The smile's not come off my face. It's been a long time. I'm really disappointed I've not been able to win more derbies," he said. "We play against a really good football club but it's not been because of a lack of effort. "In the past we've probably lacked the quality to match Liverpool. I don't think we do now. "We've got players of real quality who could play for the big clubs. "Whoever scored the first goal was going to be really important and I think we always looked more likely in the first 20-25 minutes. "I was delighted to get in front because both teams have not been scoring that freely."
