Given that manager David Moyes declared in January that he has the final say on players when it comes to recruitment, Evertonians will be watching with interest after boyhood Blue Eddie Howe left Newcastle United just hours after admitting to reporters that he had lost control of transfers.
Despite ending the Magpies’ 70-year domestic trophy drought with victory over Liverpool in the 2025 Carabao Cup final, Howe now won’t be facing Everton in their pre-season friendly at Edinburgh's iconic Murrayfield Stadium on August 12 after his St James’ Park reign came to an end on Thursday, with David Ornstein of the Athletic claiming 38-year-old German Matthias Jaissle of Al Ahli in Saudi Arabia has been lined up as replacement.
As reported by Lee Ryder in the ECHO’s sister paper the Newcastle Chronicle, Howe admitted last night at Ashton Gate, following an alarming 4-1 thrashing to Bristol City, that he had lost control of transfers and is understood to have told the club he wanted to go, informing both the squad and his staff on the flight back to the North East.
With captain Bruno Guimaraes linked with a move to Arsenal, Howe stated in a pitchside interview after the defeat to the Championship side: “What will be, will be. We can’t control the forces that are at play here.”
Despite cutting a sombre figure, the 48-year-old attempted to appear upbeat and added: “There’s been a lot of upheaval at the football club with potentially more to come. I think there’s always reasons to be optimistic and that's very much my default setting.
“I believe great things are possible every season with a real buzz of what’s ahead. I see no reasons to be any different this year.
“Every day as Newcastle manager is a great day for me. I absolutely love the football club and that will never change.”
Everton's football leadership structure sees Moyes joined by Nick Cox who is technical director; James Smith is director of scouting and recruitment; Chris Howarth is responsible for directing the club’s football strategy and analytics operations, while Nick Hammond leads player trading activity and negotiations under chief executive Angus Kinnear who was in the stands at the bet365 Stadium on Tuesday for the 1-0 friendly defeat to Championship side Stoke City.
Back in January, when speaking in the pre-match press conference to preview what was arguably the Blues' most impressive victory of the campaign, beating an Aston Villa side that had won their previous 11 home games and would go on to lift the Europa League, Moyes said: “I’ve got the final say if we want to buy a player or we don’t want to buy a player. But I get told by my superiors how much we’ve got to spend and what we’ve got available and I have to work off those thoughts.”
Last summer, Everton abandoned their director of football model, which had been deployed since 2016 when introduced by former owner Farhad Moshiri and filled by Steve Walsh, Marcel Brands and Kevin Thelwell.
Speaking exclusively to the ECHO back in September 2024 for his episode in our Goodison Park: My Home series, Moyes outlined how he is happy to operate with others on recruitment but insisted those individuals should also take ownership for any players they bring in.
He said: “It’s certainly changed. There are certainly a lot more things required now.
“Ultimately, I think the manager, maybe called ‘the head coach’ now, are the ones who are getting fired for it so if I’m going to get fired, I’m going to get fired because it’s players I sign or I choose to sign.
“It’s how I play and not how I get told to play. You need to be able to do that.
“If it’s changed differently, then I can do that. If somebody turns around and says: ‘By the way, I’m signing the players for you,’ I can do that.
“But don’t be putting my name to everything then, everyone you bring in, and not taking responsibility. There are very few people now who really want to take the responsibility for what’s going on.
“I had very little interference (during his first spell at Everton). I was really fortunate that I had no interference from the people at the club.
“They allowed me to just get on with it, within reason. I didn’t have a great deal of money to spend but we watched Joleon Lescott around 24 times live because I had a decision to sign him or Robert Huth and it was a toss of a coin.
“I wanted a naturally left-footed centre-back if I could and it was really touch and go over who we got. I signed Joleon and he was a brilliant buy for us who went on to become an England international and what you could say were better things.
“There’s a lot of proof in those ones we brought in that there was room for improvement, they suited us at Everton. I think we chose quite well in those days.”