Europe is big for Everton - Distin

Defender Sylvain Distin believes securing European football will be a great achievement for Everton considering the teams they are competing against for it.

A comfortable 2-0 win at Goodison Park put another nail in the coffin of second-bottom QPR but lifted David Moyes' side within three points of Champions League qualification. With a trip to third-placed Arsenal on Tuesday the Toffees could enhance their claims further, which is admirable considering the six teams currently above them all have bigger budgets.

"It will be a great achievement if we do secure Europe because we don't have a massive squad," the Frenchman told Press Association Sport. "We know financially we are not in position to buy four or five players every transfer window but we still compete against teams who spend 10 or even 100 times more than we do."

He added: "From that point of view that is great but at the same time if we qualify for the Europa League or at best Champions League we have a small squad so we might suffer from it and only time will tell.

"All we want is to finish as high as possible."

One of those teams who have spent considerably more than Everton are QPR, although rather than benefiting them it appears to have handicapped them as their expensively-assembled squad showed at Goodison Park they are worth considerably less than the sum of their parts.

Starting the match seven points from safety - where they remained after it - they did not appear up for the fight and once Darron Gibson's drive took a big deflection off Clint Hill to beat Julio Cesar their body language gave the game away. When Victor Anichebe hooked in from close range shortly after half-time there was little in the way of a response.

Manager Harry Redknapp concedes time has nearly run out for his side and with the npower Championship rapidly coming into view he appears to be getting his excuses ready.

"It was always going to be difficult because a third of the season had gone with four points on the board (when he took over)," he said.

"You take a team on which is basically not your team but you try to get the best out of them and I think we've done that but whether it is good enough in the end..... it is going to be difficult."