Manager David Moyes paid a special tribute to 18 year-old James Vaughan, who fired his first senior goal for Everton since recovering from career-threatening knee surgery.
Vaughan came on in the final minutes of yesterday's 2-0 home win over West Ham to grab an injury-time clincher.
It was Vaughan's first goal for the first team since he became the club's youngest goalscorer in April 2005 against Crystal Palace.
But what looked like the beginning of a promising career was put on hold for 14 months as he needed two operations on serious cruciate knee problems.
Now he is back and firing and Moyes said: 'The lad has lost over a year of the important early stages of his career. It has taken a lot of hard work for him to get back, he's a willing lad and determined to do well. I am very pleased for him.'
Moyes hailed his patched-up side after their win extended the Hammers' away run to nine successive defeats.
Last-minute injuries in training forced Moyes into a roll-call a couple of hours before the match to decide who was fit to play with Tim Cahill, Alessandro Pistone, Paddy Boyle and Gary Naysmith already out.
Moyes said: 'It was like a casualty ward after training on Saturday. Victor Anichebe damaged his knee and both Phil Neville and Mikel Arteta suffered injuries within 60 seconds of each other.
'Neville has a knee problem but Arteta kicked the ground and has damaged his shin and ankle. He will have an X-ray this morning but could be out for a couple of weeks.
'Considering those problems I was very pleased with the result, if not always the performance. It that was just the result we needed after a couple of setbacks in recent weeks. We worked hard, played as a team and stood up to everything West Ham threw at us.'
Everton won with second-half strikes by Leon Osman - on his 100th appearance for the club - and that injury-time goal from Vaughan.
West Ham saw Carlos Tevez produce an outstanding personal display with Everton keeper Tim Howard denying him on two occasions.
Manager Alan Pardew said: 'We had a similar game recently at Middlesbrough where we did well and couldn't score. But we better than that here.
'We had a dozen corners in the first half, looked like we were going to score, but that has been the story of our season on the road.
'We don't seem to be able to give ourselves a cushion. We conceded the first goal again and were chasing the game again. I cannot fault our application or effort. We must keep our heads up because we have a very important game now on Wednesday at home to Wigan.
'When you cannot get away points it puts us under pressure at home to claw those points back. I believe it is now over 10 hours since we scored an away goal, and that is a concern. All you can do is pepper the target like we did, and hope one soon goes in.
'Our penetration, our control of the game, is fine right up to the area. David Moyes almost apologised to me at the end, he maybe feel he got a victory out of nothing.
'Carlos Tevez was excellent, he also needs a goal to give him even more confidence.'
