Everton boss Roberto Martinez has said that his side's performance over the festive period will give them a good indication of how well they could do in the second half of the Premier League season.
The Toffees found things tough going at the start of the campaign, but have slowly started to put together some promising results to push them into 10th position in the league table.
"The games we have now in the league are very important for us. It is probably a very important period for us to see what we do in the second half of the season," said Martinez, according to SportingLife.
"The European competition has been a success and we will take that over in February but now all the concentration goes into the league. I do feel this period of 12 days will be significant to see what we do in the second half of the season.
"The group is getting stronger physically, the mentality has gone to another level and the only thing we can be critical about is we haven't got the points we should have in the league. That is something we need to learn. Sometimes it is a good knack to have as a team that you don't have to be perfect to get full points and the top teams do that and I don't think we have done that."
Everton's next game sees them travel to St Mary's to face Southampton on Saturday.
Christopher Dodd
