David Moyes was quizzed about the issue that forced Vitalii Mykolenko off and the performance of the recalled Jake O'Brien in his Everton side's 2-0 loss at Arsenal

Everton manager David Moyes claims he’s still in the dark over the injury that forced his squad’s only recognised left-back Vitalii Mykolenko off in the 2-0 defeat to Arsenal at the Emirates Stadium.

Mykolenko started the Blues’ first seven matches of the season but after missing the last three of Ukraine’s four games in the recent international break, he was ruled out of the 2-2 draw at Hull City a fortnight ago. Returning to the side for the 2-0 home defeat to Chelsea last weekend, the 27-year-old had to be taken off after 74 minutes against the Gunners.

Asked how Mykolenko was, Moyes – who also revealed he found out about the concussion that ruled Jarrad Branthwaite out of the fixture on Monday morning – said: “Don’t know yet, no. No idea.”

In terms of his overall assessment of the contest, the 63-year-old added: “Not an awful lot really, no, no. I don’t have big thoughts on it.

“We didn’t really get to a level, which I think would have been good enough to win on the day. We gave away a goal very early, which meant we were sort of half chasing.

“It felt like we’d got a bit better in the second half and got back into it a little bit more, got a bit closer to the Arsenal in the second half, but then they come up with a second goal.

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“There was some good stuff but certainly on the defensive side of it. I didn’t feel as if we’d done enough from an attacking part of the game.”

Moyes also had mixed thoughts over Jake O’Brien, who deputised for Branthwaite, making his first Premier League start of the season.

He said: “Jake did well, he did a lot of good things. He’s got pretty big competition as Jarrad Branthwaite is an excellent player and Tarky is a bit of a leader for us and trains every day like a beast and get himself ready for all the games and prepares himself.

“There’s competition there, but he didn’t do himself any harm today in some of it. He’s got lots of things he has to improve on for him to step up.”