David Moyes
Everton manager David Moyes (Image: Redmen TV 2)
Everton boss David Moyes has hailed Newcastle United's achievements this season, even if he will try to play the role of party-pooper at St James' Park on Sunday. The Magpies need a win over the Toffees to secure a top-five Premier League place and a return to the Champions League on the final day of the campaign.
It has been a season in which United ended their 70-year wait for a domestic trophy by beating Liverpool in the Carabao Cup final in March, and a place in the Champions League would put the icing on the cake after another memorable term. Moyes' men have little left to play for, after bringing the curtain down on Goodison Park with a 2-0 win over Southampton last weekend.
The former Sunderland boss has been hugely impressed by what Eddie Howe and Co have managed to achieve so far, and is expecting a tough game, with the home crowd hoping to celebrate more success.
"It's a great achievement for Newcastle, or it could be a great achievement for Newcastle," said Moyes. "And they've already won a trophy this year so they've done a remarkable job. It's become a football club which is challenging all the big sides. They'll give us a really good game.
"It'll be a tough day for us to go to Newcastle but we've been good away from home, we want to keep our form going. Obviously we're missing a few players but we'll go there hopefully with that confidence that we can get a result."
Everton head to St James' Park without their first-choice central defensive pairing with James Tarkowski joined on the sidelines by Jarrad Branthwaite and Seamus Coleman. Jesper Lindstrom and Orel Mangala are long-term absentees.
“He is injured and won’t be available,” Moyes said of Branthwaite. “It will probably be four or five weeks with a hamstring injury.
“Seamus is not available either. There’s not much we can do about it, but he is a big loss to us, and we will have to live with it just now. Seamus is not available.”
Everton were in a relegation battle when Moyes succeeded Sean Dyche, but are now certain to finish in 13th place after a postive second half of the season. It's something he takes pride in and is already making plans for a better 2025-26 campaign.
"I don't know if we could have got much better than where we are when we first came in," he added. "Crystal Palace, they've had a really good second half of the season and obviously they've gone and won the cup as well. They were about the only team that we could have even thought about catching at the time.
"I'm really, really pleased for us to get the points and we've finished above an awful lot of big sides, good sides. The players have done a brilliant job, they really have. We now need to pick that up again, start the next season and hopefully take it into the new stadium, but also into the new season."