Why does a second round tie in the League Cup on a Wednesday night – Everton’s second game of the season – feel like one of the most important games in the club’s recent history?
Because David Moyes has made it so.
Moyes’ bizarre quotes on Saturday (embargoed until Tuesday) in what served as a pre-match press conference for the Preston North End game have riled the majority of a fanbase which had simmered down after a 2-0 home win against Crystal Palace, but not fully cooled.
For many Evertonians, they are still angry about how the club finished the 2025/26 season with no wins from the final seven games, despite Europe being within grasp. Throw in a summer of silence from the manager and board, as well as no resolution on the long-drawn-out search for a right back and suddenly every quote, piece of news or shortcoming on the pitch is unnecessarily amplified.
Relegation talk sours press conference
The latest of these came courtesy of David Moyes during this pre-match press conference. Asked whether he’d like to do well in the cups this season by the Liverpool Echo’s Joe Thomas, Moyes was needlessly antagonistic in his response, saying:
“Of course we all want to win the cups. Yes, the cups are hugely important, would it be more important than staying in the Premier League? I’ll ask you the question: Is winning a cup more important than staying in the Premier League? What would your answer be?”
Joe was immediately backed into a corner and, in the heat of the moment, had little time to conjure an appropriate response. The appropriate response, of course, should have been: why does it have to be one or the other? The two aren’t mutually exclusive.
For talk of relegation to be included in a question about Everton’s attitude towards the cups is a problem that has blighted the club for a number of years. It harks back to the era of ‘plucky little Everton’, who should just be glad to turn up and give it a go, make sure they get to 40 points and “not get ahead of ourselves”.
Well, for Evertonians, this attitude will no longer wash. To be bringing up relegation while a trophy drought of 31 years and counting continues to grow creates an unnecessary cloud over the club. It ensures that any talk of ambition or dreams is immediately met with the cold water of a reality check.
While some fans believe the question asked by Joe Thomas was a pointless one, it had plenty of merit. Third round exits in the cups to Wolverhampton Wanderers and Sunderland last season were an all too familiar feeling in what has become an exhaustingly lax attitude to correcting a trophy drought that began in 1995. A host of changes to disrupt the team’s balance when ties are there for the taking, and when there’s no Europe to navigate, has always been hard for Toffees to understand.
So for Moyes to hit back at a journalist with such venom when asked a legitimate question and bring up something totally unrelated is baffling. Like it or not, the Scot has been in charge for 13 of those 31 years without a trophy. Yes, there have been near misses at Wembley in the 2009 FA Cup final against Chelsea and the 2012 FA Cup semi final against Liverpool, but for the large majority of outings, it’s felt like rinse and repeat, season after season.
So where do Everton go from here?
You could forgive Evertonians for going into this season with a general sense of apathy, and many understandably have. The long, protracted search for a right back shows no signs of reaching a satisfactory conclusion, despite the transfer window closing in less than a week, and there are still questions to be had about the distant ownership and longer term strategy of the club.
Saturday’s victory – in what was Everton’s first opening day win in five years – had acted as a reset for many still angry about the way that last season finished with a whimper, despite European football being there for the taking.
The degree of good feeling from that win, however, has now all but been dispelled, and suddenly the importance of today’s game feels absolutely massive.
In years gone by, you’d be used to seeing a whole host of changes being made for a fixture like this. Now, that simply cannot be allowed to happen. While many fans would understand the inclusion of a Tyler Dibling on the wing or Jake O’Brien in defence, sticking with the team that secured the win on Saturday is the right thing to do. A repeat of the meek display away to Wolves last season would be catastrophic for the club and potentially for David Moyes himself, who now has less than a year left of his two and a half year deal.
A summer of silence
Having barely heard a peep from David Moyes all summer before and after pre-season games, fan chatter about why this was the case began to grow on social media, with more and more asking whether this was normal for a Premier League manager to be doing.
Of course, he is not contractually obliged to give interviews in pre-season, but Evertonians could be forgiven for wanting to hear the thoughts of the man in charge of their club, especially as
Was he still unhappy about how last season had ended? Was he upset at the board for the lack of movement in transfers? Was there unhappiness at the lack of progression on talks surrounding a new contract?
Whatever the reasoning, the Scot broke his self-imposed silence and sat down with Sky Sports for an interview ahead of Everton’s opening game.
Chatting to Vinny O’Connor, Moyes said: “We’re still needing quite a few players to add to the squad. I’d like to do more if possible, we need to see how the remaining few weeks go.”
When asked what improvements needed to be made. He said: “I’m not going to tell you. But we’re well aware of what’s required and we’re working hard to try and make it happen.”
Just a day later, Everton CEO Angus Kinnear did his own series of interviews, in which he highlighted that The Friedkin Group (TFG) had viewed missing out on Europe last season as “a failure”.
Moyes was back in action at a pre-match press conference on Friday, a day before the Crystal Palace game, and met those comments with surprise.
The Glaswegian said: “I am surprised they [TFG] were disappointed because I don’t think anybody set out, there was never ever a time anybody said to me: ‘David you have to make Europe or you have to be in and around the top end’.
“I think everybody wanted to make sure that we moved into the new stadium safe – not having too difficult a season and we certainly done that last year.”
Alarm bells now started to ring amongst the fanbase. Were David Moyes and Angus Kinnear singing from the same hymn sheet? The two men’s discourse has seemed to contradict each other in many ways.
Kinnear’s own, now infamous, “happily dissatisfied” assessment of Everton’s season before the home game against Sunderland in May was used as a stick to beat him with as the club finished the 2025/26 season with a whimper. The former Leeds man acknowledged that the choice of words was poor and seemed to regret the timing and confusion around the message he had given.
While many bemoaned Kinnear’s interviews as further signs of a lack of action, others were pleased that he had spelt out so clearly what was happening behind the scenes in terms of feeling over last season, the summer strategy and aims going forward.
While Kinnear was realistic about Everton’s battle with issues like PSR and SCR [Squad Cost Ratio], there was talk of European football being the aim and giving importance to cup competitions.
Which is why Moyes’ comments yesterday are even harder to fathom.
‘Be careful what you wish for’
When it comes to Evertonians’ criticisms of David Moyes, much of the discourse from those in the media and fans of other clubs centres around one single phrase: ‘be careful what you wish for’.
This take is now not only ill-informed, but lazy. It seems to imply that because West Ham United won the Conference League in 2023 – a competition that every Premier League side who enters should be winning without breaking a sweat – and got relegated three years later, Moyes is above any form of criticism.
Suggestions like this show the problem that non-big six clubs face when being spoken about in the mainstream media. While it could be argued that West Ham regressed since Moyes left the club, it could also be argued that the Hammers’ downfall was due to a number of factors. The appointments of Julen Lopetegui and Graham Potter, for starters. It could also be argued that West Ham’s squad was ageing and unbalanced, with many of those players responsible for the club’s relegation having been brought to the club by Moyes.
On the pitch after Everton’s final game at Goodison Park in 2025 (a 2-0 win against Southampton), a smiling Moyes said that before taking over from Sean Dyche four months earlier “this club looked broken, felt broken, (but) doesn’t feel like that anymore”. The new stadium looked like it would be the catalyst for that rebuild to begin in earnest.
Just 15 months later, he has the demeanour of a man who’d rather be anywhere but here. While I can totally see how press conferences can be a pain and the worst part of a manager’s job, they shouldn’t be a platform to deflate fans’ expectations and dreams as a new season begins — especially as those same fans have been waiting for something to celebrate for over three decades now.
The Friedkin Group
As for The Friedkin Group (TFG), who, if we are to believe what Angus Kinnear said, were unhappy with how last season finished. What will they make of Moyes’ comments?
The accusation that has long been levelled at TFG since they took over the ownership of the club is that Everton are merely a side project to their main passion – AS Roma. Dan Friedkin has yet to attend a game at either Goodison Park or Hill Dickinson Stadium, and the lack of correspondence from TFG as a whole since taking over has left Evertonians wondering how far their interest stretches.
While Angus Kinnear’s interview last week was welcome, many fans will be keen to have their fears about TFG’s commitment to the club allayed, whether that be in the form of a sit-down interview with the club’s media channels to discuss the future strategy/aims of the club or simply being visible at home games.
But if Evertonians are alarmed by Moyes’ comments, then TFG should be too. Any owners with ambition spending tens of millions of pounds should be.
The question is: what are they going to do about it?
In the more immediate short term, there is the matter of today’s match against Preston North End. Having watched Brentford dispatch Birmingham City 6-1 and Leeds United put in a professional display with a 2-0 win away to Nottingham Forest, it is clear that other clubs are taking the League Cup with the seriousness it deserves.
Can it be the catalyst for bigger change at Everton?