Everton executive chairman Marc Watts of The Friedkin Group (left) and manager David Moyes (right)
Everton executive chairman Marc Watts of The Friedkin Group (left) and manager David Moyes (right)
It’s good to see that Everton’s new owners The Friedkin Group are doing everything possible to try and improve us as a football club, whether it’s on or off-the-field matters and the announcements of the past week can help with both. That of course includes loans and refinancing to save us money on the interest as even for a Premier League football club, £50million is a huge sum to get back.
I think TFG always wanted to bring their own people in and improve every department of the football club. The managerial change has fast-tracked that but having revealed that there’s going to be a wider sporting leadership team rather than a director of football when Kevin Thelwell’s contract expires this summer, now they’re going to bring in a chief executive Angus Kinnear who has experience at moving into new stadiums and working under American owners.
It’s also been confirmed that Everton’s players are going to the USA this summer, which is good to see. I think our pre-seasons over the past couple of years have been pretty poor and that’s led to some sluggish starts.
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We’ve had early season fixture lists that have looked like winnable games on paper but then haven’t started well at all. It’s taken us a long time to get going and have seemingly sleepwalked into seasons, which is disappointing.
Now, we’ll be heading on a high-profile trip, playing in front of strong opponents in the shape of other Premier League teams so hopefully we’ll start next season looking a lot sharper.
In the meantime, it’s David Moyes’ previous employers West Ham United, the club who he steered to a first major trophy in 43 years, next up for Everton. You always want to get a result against your old team and it’s against Graham Potter who was another name linked with Everton before Moyes came back.
Moyes will want to be professional. West Ham are a bit different under Potter as they create lots of opportunities and are a lot more free-flowing going forward but they’re very vulnerable at the back where they take chances.
Can Moyes and Everton take advantage of that to get Goodison Park rocking again? It’s our only home game this month and until recently it had been a long time since we as a fanbase had all been thinking that we couldn’t wait to get back there and watch the boys play.