Everton FC correspondent Joe Thomas on the approach to the summer and why European qualification is important, but not the sole indicator of a successful season
David Moyes during the Premier League match between Newcastle United and Everton at St James' Park. Photo by James Gill - Danehouse/Getty Images
David Moyes during the Premier League match between Newcastle United and Everton at St James' Park. Photo by James Gill - Danehouse/Getty Images
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Whether or not Everton will host European football next season remains an open question but there is hope the they are already more attractive simply through being in the fight for it.
David Moyes oversaw an opening salvo in the efforts to rebuild the squad last summer, the first of what the Friedkin Group think will be a multi-year project to create a playing staff of the depth and quality to sustain the club in the top half of the table.
But - as has often been repeated as this season has ebbed and flowed - only so much could be done in one off-season. And for a club that had suffered the pain Everton endured over recent years, there were several challenges to overcome.
Moyes inherited a dressing room buffeted by the financial troubles that characterised the final years of the reign of Farhad Moshiri. Around a dozen senior players entered the final weeks of the campaign with their contracts or loan deals terminating - a mess of a situation that required care and pragmatism that ate into the time available to reshape the squad.
The Blues, for instance, started July with no senior, experienced option on the right of the midfield after Jesper Lindstrom and Jack Harrison returned to their parent clubs.
The consequence of this was a delay in being able to fully focus on pursuing targets while talks continued with Michael Keane and Idrissa Gueye, who stayed on Merseyside, and Dominic Calvert-Lewin, who left.
Beside the underinvestment of the previous years (even after a summer spend of more than £100m, Everton’s net spend over the past five years is lower than each of the promoted clubs, Sunderland, Leeds United and Burnley) there was also the reputational damage of three successive relegation fights and two points deductions that tormented supporters until last season, which also looked set to collapse into a survival battle until Moyes changed the club’s fortunes upon his return in January 2025.
To those of us whose lives are entwined with the Blues it was clear that by this time last year the club had turned a corner - Moyes had the team pulling comfortably clear of the bottom three, new owners were restructuring the club behind the scenes and the keys had been handed over to what we now know as Hill Dickinson Stadium.
There was clearly and, perhaps understandably, a lag in the feel-good factor growing inside the club being understood by those who had watched from the outside as it burned for so long.
Both of the above factors have largely been dealt with. Yes, there are senior players - Tom King, Vitalii Mykolenko, Seamus Coleman (Moyes has said discussions over the club captain’s future will likely pick up pace after the Republic of Ireland’s upcoming World Cup qualifiers), Keane and Gueye - on deals that are currently due to run out in the summer.
Yet this is a far more manageable group than the number Moyes had to contend with last season and, importantly, both he and the structure set up by CEO Angus Kinnear have been embedded at Finch Farm long enough for those situations to be managed on the club’s terms.
Of significance is that the club has been proactive in securing the futures of players at the heart of Moyes’ plans - Jarrad Branthwaite’s new deal last summer has since been followed by extensions for Jordan Pickford, James Tarkowski and James Garner.
From a PR perspective, meanwhile, Everton now looks like a fun place to be. The home form has been indifferent but almost everyone who has been to the stunning new stadium has left impressed, while the scenes of celebration in the away ends from Old Trafford to Villa Park and St James’ Park have been impossible to ignore.
Throw in the positive vibes of Jack Grealish and Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall alongside the stunning saves of Pickford and the magic of Iliman Ndiaye and all of a sudden the Premier League is awash with Everton highlight reels as an organisation whose regulatory zest almost led to the club’s demise now attempts to join the party.
The sense of the Blues as a club on the up will be hammered home when the latest accounts are released towards the end of the month and showcase the work TFG has undertaken to put it on a stable financial footing in the opening months of their rule.
Looking further forward, revenues are expected to push the £250m landmark for the current year (the 2025/26 financial year, the accounts for which will be released in 2027).
All of this will prove helpful for Moyes even if Everton’s push for Europe is unsuccessful this season. While there remains a chance of qualification for midweek football on the continent, that is where his focus will lie. But he is just starting to think about what an improved Everton might do for the players the club can attract in the summer. Indeed, he is thinking more about that than the players who are on expiring deals.
He said: “I've actually not put myself on to thinking about the people who are within the building. I'm actually beginning to start thinking about what we're going to get from outside the building at the moment, what we might need to do. The truth is I've not got my head on it yet. I'm expecting to do it probably in the coming weeks a bit more. Obviously all those other things fit into it as well [Europe].
“I think we're trying to keep focused on what we're doing and not really go off track at all regarding anything else. We've re-signed quite a few players from Pickford to Tarky to Jimmy Garner, so we've done a pretty good job on getting the mainstay pretty much settled.”
One of the most notable features of the past 12 months has been the commitment of some of the club’s most important players to the Blues and their shared belief that, after years of struggle, it can be a place that grows with their ambitions rather than falls short of them.
Moyes agrees: “It's what we want and we're going to have to add to it and we need to, that's where we need hope that we're able to do some good business. But again, I'll re-mention it, I was surprised at the amount of people who didn't want to sign for Everton in the summer. I'm hoping we're starting to change that a little bit and people are beginning to look a bit closer."
He remains aware convincing those from outside the club to share that vision will be easier if European football is on offer next season, though: "I know and I feel the difference because I've had a chance to see what it means when you become a European side again. It's much more attractive to many players because they get that feeling of it's a club on the up."