David Moyes discussed Everton's end-of-season slump ahead of their final game at Tottenham Hotspur
Everton manager David Moyes
Everton manager David Moyes
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David Moyes says that Everton “need a big summer” in the transfer market as the six-match winless run during the run-in that has cost his team a potential European place has left the Blues boss with “a cloud” hanging over him.
A 3-0 victory over Chelsea on March 21 put Moyes’ men within three points of a Champions League qualification spot, but a failure to win any of their subsequent half-dozen matches has left them in the bottom half of the table and in danger of finishing lower than last season’s 13th place.
Speaking in his pre-match press conference for their trip to relegation-threatened Tottenham Hotspur on the final day of the Premier League campaign, the 63-year-old said: “We need a big summer again as a football club. We need to have a big summer where we can build on it.
“We’re showing it doesn’t take much. It just needs a couple of your better players to lose a little bit of form, and it can quickly change your results and how you do.”
Moyes added: “Look, overall, I think we would all accept that we’ve had a pretty drama-free season. We’ve done a lot of really good things, and we’ve gone into the final month of the season, still competitive for the top end rather than the bottom end.
“We’ve not got a relegation play-off game at the end of the season where we’re having to win one of the games to stay up. We’ve not got that situation.
“So, there are lots of good things but there’s a cloud hanging over me at the moment that I’m disappointed that we’ve not finished the last six games well enough. We’ve not played well enough or we’ve not got decisions that could have gone a long way to changing things because we’re only a couple of points from going into the last game saying if you win, you’re in a European spot.
“When I look back, our form, I’ll always look at that first, but a couple of decisions have certainly not helped us.”
With England’s World Cup squad being announced on Friday morning, long-time number one Jordan Pickford was selected by Thomas Tuchel, but his club colleague James Garner, who won his first two caps in March, being named man-of-the-match against Uruguay on his international debut, missed out on selection despite being named Everton’s Player of the Season and Players’ Player of the Season the previous evening.
Moyes said: “I’m disappointed for Jimmy, but I’ve got to say I’m not surprised because I think our form over the last five or six weeks hasn’t encouraged anybody to focus on our players. I think when we were doing so well, Jimmy was a huge part of it.
“I think your team, your players need to be in form to attract the England manager to select you. We have to take a bit of the disappointment along with Jimmy as well and we’ve not been able to get him to the World Cup.”
Garner is the only member of the squad to have started every Everton game this term and with the Blues using fewer players than any of their Premier League rivals and making the second fewest substitutions, some have blamed fatigue for their drop off in form in recent weeks. However, the Glaswegian gaffer has dismissed such suggestions.
Moyes said: “Well, we’ve not played 50 or 60 games like the Aston Villa players or the others. If you’re asking me, that doesn’t stack up one bit at all.
“I don’t see where that can even be part of it, players are playing 60 or 70 games and what not, and getting on with it. For us to have 38 games, 40 maybe, I can’t see that at all.”