Everton FC correspondent Joe Thomas sifts through the rubble of a week in which the club once again collapsed into instability
David Moyes
David Moyes
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It was a scene that felt all too familiar.
On Friday afternoon, I drove into Finch Farm wondering what mood an Everton manager would be in after the world around them had come crashing down.
The club preparing to sell their future before a fan revolt would have been enough to send a normal club into meltdown. I felt the full fury of the away end’s wrath at Bournemouth and, believe me, their voices changed the course of history. I had hoped the days of Blues supporters needing to step in to correct the route being taken by the club were over, but it was, nonetheless, a privilege to see them in action again.
A deadline day that weakened the squad after a summer that started and ended with the CEO stressing the desire to add depth would have been enough to send a normal club into meltdown.
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The emergence of the ownership’s desire for, at the very least, outside investment, less than two years after their arrival was supposed to herald a new dawn of stability, would have been enough to send a normal club into meltdown.
For good and, sometimes, bad - Everton is not a normal club. Conspiring to produce all three of those scenarios within just seven days was still an extraordinary achievement.
And so it felt like deja vu as I walked through the car park in Halewood, once again pondering whether an Everton manager would come out swinging or keep their cards close to their chest.
David Moyes - as, in fairness, Sean Dyche typically did - opted for the latter. He acknowledged the window had ended in disappointment but chose not to attribute blame. These things happen, was essentially his line. No-one was at fault, he even said, stressing that medicals often raise problems, late business can fall down, and that clubs striving to make progress can often fall prey to the whims of those, like Manchester City, in the position they are seeking to challenge.
I thought it was remarkably restrained from Moyes.
He spent all summer keeping his views private - I went to Germany, twice, and Scotland, twice, without being allowed to get close to him.
When he has spoken, his words have conveyed a deep sense of frustration. I felt, to an extent, the force of that when he responded to my question ahead of the Carabao Cup game with Preston - when I asked how important the cups were to him this season - and his riposte was to ask what was more important: the cups or Premier League survival?
Whether or not he agreed the question was valid, his answer provided more insight into his thoughts than we had been privy to all summer. Suddenly they feel slightly foreboding - Everton should, of course, be able to do both. They maintain a strong core that has started the season well. But they are so short of numbers that, if injury problems bite at the wrong time of the campaign, he may well have to choose between league position and cup run. That is not a situation of his making.
It was me - again - at the heart of those emotional words post-Bournemouth, when he ended my run of questions with the message to supporters that, above all else, “their manager is an Evertonian”. It reverberated around the world of football, even getting played on Match of the Day on Saturday night.
Few comments have felt so poignant this summer and that this came before the shambles that followed - even if the club eventually made the right call by refusing to sell Harrison Armstrong - was a depressing foreshadowing of what was to come.
There is plenty to debate around Moyes - no-one at the club is immune to responsibility for the way in which last season’s push for Europe collapsed at the death.
But make no mistake - Moyes loves Everton. There is no doubt he wants the best for the club - even if there might be differing opinions on what that means. For what it’s worth, I think his post-match press conference at the Vitality Stadium should be a source of hope - even if Everton supporters should really be in a position where they can base expectations on firmer ground.
I have reported on Everton under three different permanent managers. I have watched all three get chewed up at Bournemouth.
I have sat in that media room, a few feet in front of those men, and looked each in the eye as we sifted through the aftermath of a nightmare on that part of the south coast. When Frank Lampard lost consecutive games there within five days, a miserable week that in hindsight was the beginning of the end, I could see the confidence drain from his face at the job in front of him. The situation was salvageable at that point, but he needed the World Cup break to recalibrate, even if it only offered a temporary reprieve.
I asked Dyche about the struggles he was enduring and his ability to turn them around, in that same room, in January 2025. It was one of the few occasions when it felt like he was truly on the backfoot and it was after that that he informed the Friedkin Group he believed he could not take the club further.
With Moyes, last week, the mood was just as sombre. But life had not drained from his eyes in the same way it had to Lampard and Dyche in that same stadium. He displayed an air of resilience and every ounce of that will be needed for the season ahead.
Moyes’ job looked hard on Saturday but it became even harder on Tuesday night. He had every right to lash out on Friday afternoon, to ridicule the challenge, delivered publicly by Angus Kinnear, to fight for Europe and the cups, to highlight the disparity between the CEO’s pre-Sunderland notes in May and pre-season comments in August about providing Moyes with a squad that would have the resources to avoid fading as it did last season. He instead heads into the coming months with just 18 senior outfield players.
He chose, instead, to keep his powder dry and speak up the chances of his team in the fight ahead. There is a valid argument to say it is in these circumstances that he has performed the best. That should not be a conversation for right now - the discussion should be about whether he can deliver progress with a strengthened squad. Neither he nor any supporter wanted it to be about what Everton can do in spite of what happened in the transfer window.
It does not give him a blank cheque for the season ahead but it should not be forgotten that, once again - even under new owners - an Everton manager is having to be the public face, the one to front up to supporters and the media - as their world crashes down around them through no fault of their own.
I, like everyone reading this, and no doubt Moyes himself, had hoped those days had gone.
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SANTA CLARA, CALIFORNIA - JULY 1: Folarin Balogun #20 of the United States celebrates after scoring a goal during the FIFA World Cup 2026 Round Of 32 match between USA and Bosnia and Herzegovina at San Francisco Bay Area Stadium on July 1, 2026 in Santa Clara, United States. (Photo by Elysia Su/ISI Photos/ISI Photos via Getty Images)
A move for Folarin Balogun fell through at the last minute for Everton(Elysia Su/ISI Photos/ISI Photos via Getty Images)