David Moyes said he was delighted for Beto, praising the striker for taking the chance provided to him against Leicester City.

The forward has struggled since moving to Everton from Udinese 18 months ago but injuries across the frontline led to him starting in the crunch game at Goodison Park. The 27-year-old scored twice in an emphatic 4-0 win and left the pitch to a deserved ovation.

After the match, Moyes said of the striker: “I am really pleased for Beto. The people who have been here much longer than me will know more about him. I am just getting to know him and he is a great kid, he works hard in training and he is trying to improve himself.

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“Sometimes in life you need an opportunity and he got one. His reception coming off the pitch was as good as we’ve heard here for a long time, so good credit to him that he stuck at it and he took his two goals well.”

The win opened a significant gap between Everton and the bottom three. While Moyes was keen not to get carried away, he acknowledged three consecutive wins and two clean sheets in a row represented a positive start to his second stint in the Blues dugout.

He said: “It was a brilliant result, a great performance in many aspects. Sometimes we didn’t play quite so well, but if you had given me three wins out of the four games we have had, the position we are in at the moment, I would say thanks very much, I’m taking that. But to score the goals, and we probably could have got a couple more as well, I am really pleased with the players. I thought their performance was really good and we are doing a lot of really good things.”

Abdoulaye Doucoure opened the scoring in the first 10 seconds before Beto added the first of his brace five minutes later. It was a dream start for the Blues. Moyes said: “After eight seconds I was thinking: ‘My goodness, this is fabulous’. The second goal backed it up. Leicester have improved recently, I think they have passed it through the middle well… so I was concerned about it. You could see we lost the ball a little but I think the minute we won the ball back we always looked a threat and it was great to see that we were beginning to look more of a threat on the counter attack.”

Moyes also had praise for James Garner who, like Beto, was an enforced change. It was Garner’s first start since he suffered a back injury in October and the knee injury that ended Orel Mangala’s season at Brighton and Hove Albion last week forced Moyes to turn to him earlier than he would have liked. The centre midfielder was superb though, his best moment the through ball that split the Leicester centre backs and allowed Beto to make it 3-0 on the cusp of half-time.

Moyes said: “I thought James did great. His pass for the goal was fabulous. I was a bit concerned about him playing as long as he did because I just need him to be right and get through and that was his first game. I thought he did a great job and I was pleased to have him back.”