Tomas Soucek of West Ham United with Everton manager David Moyes after the Premier League match at Goodison Park. Moyes craves a goalscoring midfielder at Everton, a need highlighted by Soucek's latest Premier League strike. Photo by West Ham United FC/West Ham United FC via Getty Images
Tomas Soucek of West Ham United with Everton manager David Moyes after the Premier League match at Goodison Park. Moyes craves a goalscoring midfielder at Everton, a need highlighted by Soucek's latest Premier League strike. Photo by West Ham United FC/West Ham United FC via Getty Images
Anyone searching for clues over what David Moyes would like to add to his Everton side this summer need look no further than the spell in which West Ham United seized control of the game on Saturday.
The Hammers took the lead midway through the second half when midfielder Tomas Soucek coolly slotted past Jordan Pickford for his seventh Premier League goal of the season. Moments later James Ward-Prowse forced a corner, from which he picked out the towering Czech international at the back post - though this time Pickford was able to keep him out.
In a handful of minutes both the dynamism and accuracy of those players belied central features of Moyes’ approach - and ones that may well be influential this summer.
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Moyes is desperate to find a regular source of goals from midfield at Everton. He has had some success on this front, with Iliman Ndiaye and Abdoulaye Doucoure chipping in during the nine game unbeaten league run his side is currently enjoying.
But he wants more - as shown by his public pleas for wingers Jesper Lindstrom and Jack Harrison to add more end product during a campaign in which the pair have just one goal between them.
Finding a stable source of goals from central midfield will be a key ambition for the overhaul set to take place at the end of the season. In loanee Carlos Alcaraz and the currently injured Ndiaye there is a chance Moyes may have the answer in his current squad. But he could end up favouring those players in wide positions and, should that be the case, would still want further goalscoring options.
He has already been linked with a summer move for Soucek, who he praised in the post-match press conference. The 30-year-old, who also scored the crucial second in West Ham’s 3-1 win at Goodison last season, still has a further two years left on his contract, however, and has been key to the early plans of recently appointed manager Graham Potter.
Ward-Prowse was another player singled out by Moyes in post-match comments that again pointed to an area of Everton’s game he is disappointed with. The Blues boss has made no secret of his annoyance with the quality of set-pieces during his second stint at Everton and once again spent much of this game wheeling in frustration as the likes of James Garner and Harrison sent dead balls too close to West Ham keeper Alphonse Areola.
Moyes has challenged his centre backs James Tarkowski and Jarrad Branthwaite to be a greater threat from set pieces but conceded after this match they had little chance given the deliveries into the box. He said: “I'm moaning at Tarky and Jarrad to start getting more goals - but with our deliveries from set-pieces today, there was no chance they could score from them, they were so poor.”
Ward-Prowse is a dead ball expert who will be as sorry as anyone to see the end of Goodison Park - Jake O’Brien’s stoppage time equaliser prevented him from recording a fourth consecutive win in this part of L4. Moyes is longing for someone of his quality to unlock another source of goals.
Again, there is a chance the answer could lie within, with Everton’s best set-piece taker, Dwight McNeil, working towards recovery from long-term injury. But Moyes will want greater depth in quality next season and McNeil is set for a battle for a starting berth against the likes of Ndiaye and, if the clause to make his deal permanent is triggered, Alcaraz.
That West Ham’s squad may offer a blueprint to what a modern Moyes might look to achieve is little surprise - having only left them last season he was able to joke on Saturday that he had spent ‘most of their money’.
Whether Rob Newman will link up with him again to help him build Everton’s future squad remains to be seen though. Newman was head of recruitment at Moyes’ West Ham and was at Everton’s Finch Farm training ground on Friday. Despite having been linked with a move to Merseyside, that visit is said to have been a personal one rather than a professional one.
However The Friedkin Group chose to rebuild the new-look sporting operation after the departure of outgoing director of football Kevin Thelwell, those who take the reins will have a busy summer as the club transitions from Goodison to the new stadium with a squad that currently has more than a dozen senior players set to depart.
Forward planning is now starting to gather pace behind the scenes in Halewood, with Moyes hoping to speak to TFG representatives over the next week or two in order to discuss preparations for a landmark campaign.
Moyes is not currently planning to attend next weekend’s test event at Bramley-Moore, in which the Under-21s will take on Bolton Wanderers B, because he is sticking true to his desire to stay away until the senior team are mathematically safe from relegation.
But there is a growing ease around the situation with few holding genuine fears Everton will be sucked back into trouble even if there is caution around a tough April fixture list - a mood emboldened by the attitude at Molinuex last week, where few at Wolverhampton Wanderers appeared to have serious fears the club would go down even though they were much closer to the bottom three when Everton drew there.
For Moyes, that means growing consideration around which players he may wish to keep on. Working out the strength and depth of the players at his disposal is key to that, and something he is hoping to make inroads into during this break.
The 61-year-old acknowledged he was still getting to know Youssef Chermiti as a player when he spoke of his positive cameo against West Ham. The late introduction of Chermiti, along with Armando Broja and Tim Iroegbunam, was a catalyst for Everton’s comeback. It was the first time Chermiti and Broja played for Moyes - who is also yet to see Dwight McNeil in action as a Blue.
Assessing where Chermiti, Broja, McNeil, Ndiaye and Dominic Calvert-Lewin are following serious lay-offs is one challenge for him and there is hope he will be able to see them all up close before the end of the campaign.
Moyes wants Seamus Coleman, another senior figure beset by injury, to remain at the club next season - whether that be as a player or should he utilise his coaching qualifications and step into the backroom setup.
Coleman, who has returned to the bench but not been called up to international duty with the Republic of Ireland, is one of several players Moyes wants to train with during the break and for whom he could arrange a behind-closed-doors friendly or in-house game in order to assess their fitness.
He said on Saturday evening: “There's a few boys, they'll train. The boys who have been off injured will be training quite a bit during the week, the other boys will get a bit more time off. But we might wait till next week as well before we have a bounce game, do something like that for some of the lads.”
While he is unwilling to head down to the new stadium, Moyes is also thinking about how to prepare the players who will be in next season’s plans for the move, and is considering arranging training sessions at the ground this season, if and when safety is confirmed.