David Moyes was asked about the potential impact of Tyrique George's signing on Tyler Dibling and the emotional impact of Dwight McNeil's collapsed move to Crystal Palace ahead of Everton's trip to Fulham
David Moyes wants his transfer deadline day acquisition of Tyrique George to galvanise Tyler Dibling as he claims his most expensive signing of last summer is finally showing signs of the aggression needed to be a successful Everton player.
The Blues have snapped up George, who is less than a fortnight older than Dibling and can play on either wing, on loan from Chelsea for the remainder of the season with an option for a permanent switch.
Despite Dibling, who Southampton were originally demanding £50million for, commanding a fee understood to be £35m, the Exeter-born player has only completed one game all season for Everton - the 2-0 win at Nottingham Forest on December 30.
Asked how he’d react to George coming in if he were Dibling, Moyes, whose side go to Fulham today (Saturday), said: “I’d be thinking I better get my finger out and show the manager what I was really all about.
“The one thing is Tyler has got on his side is that he is young and he is a quite a quiet boy who might take more time to settle in. Might. But he needs to show when he gets the opportunities.
“I think there are just little glimpses of him just beginning to get angry, which I am enjoying, just beginning to be someone who might have to get angry in order to show what he wants to do.
“What we want from him is being direct, taking people on, committing people, Jack Grealish does it in a way where he drags the ball and brings people to him and find a way of not releasing.
“It doesn’t need to be all one way, but he needs to get a way of becoming that player who we bought that we thought would be creative. Are you going to get us some assists, are you going to score some goals? He is just showing little signs that he is heading towards that a bit better.”
In terms of where these emotions Moyes claims he is seeing are coming from, he added: “I think Tyler is more angry with himself. He is quite a quiet boy, but I think he is angry with himself because I think he is realising that if I don’t get my finger out than I am going to get pushed aside here.
“He has more competition but that is what happens in football. If you want to be at the elite end of football then the competition is stiff and you have to live with that.”
Moyes believes George’s arrival can be mutually beneficial for the pair, though, who were photographed together in training this week at Finch Farm with Dibling smiling when in conversation with his new team-mate. He said: “Yes, he’ll help him. They play in the England Under-21s together.
“They’re quite close and quite pally, they know each other. So, hopefully it helps Tyrique as well as Tyler.”
One transfer deadline day deal that did not go through was Dwight McNeil’s proposed move to Crystal Palace. The player’s partner Megan Sharpley took to social media to declare the collapse of the transfer had “broken my heart to see how the football world you love so much can be so cruel to you.”
The ECHO understands that Nathan Patterson was also close to a potential transfer deadline day move to Genoa but in the end, a loan exit for Adam Aznou was not on the cards and Moyes remarked: “I’ve said this many times, I say it about managers as well, there’s mental health issues around for everybody. There are problems that I’m sure the Prime Minister might be having right now, never mind anybody else.
“Everybody can have different problems in different ways in how they word it.
“Let’s be fair, this isn’t any change for football players. Without thinking too deep, you might come up with a hundred players where deals have fallen through, they’ve not got to clubs or their big move hasn’t happened.
“In the world we’re in, you have to just move forward and you go again. That’s the way it is.
“I have huge respect for the words mental health because there could be other issues. But simply that a deal has fallen through and it’s not very nice, you could probably look back and there would be thousands of players who could tell you it had happened to them at different clubs.
“Dwight is fine. I’ve spoken to him and he’s been to see me a couple of times, there’s no problem at all.”
After getting back on the scoresheet at Brighton, Moyes is also hoping Beto can discover another purple patch now it’s February after he netted five goals in four Premier League games for him in the month last year.
He said: “Beto’s been good. I didn’t realise it was his birthday when he scored at the weekend so you know that that will have helped as well.
“But I think that the connection he’s got with the support here is really big. I think the support recognise how well he’s done for his last season.
“You know in a period of the season where we needed somebody to step up with goals. Dom was injured for us at the time and he certainly did that.
“So, I think there’s still a little bit of love there for him and I think he showed it and getting the equaliser won’t do himself any damage.
“I’m joking about the words I’m using but I’m hoping Beto is sort of coming into season a little bit here because it was about this time last year when he started to get his goals. He’s beginning to smell the spring here and enjoying the thought that he might start scoring a few goals.”
As his jubilant celebrations at the Amex Stadium showed, Moyes also believes it’s a good sign that his team are continuing to battle right to the end of matches.
He said: “It was a great feeling to score a goal when it looked as if the whistle could have blown at any moment and we were probably going to go away with nothing. We’d probably just about done enough to get something out of the game really.
“It was a big moment, I’m really pleased. It could make a big difference with Brighton getting three points and us taking something keeps our noses in front of them.
“We were never out of the game. The first goal was probably a good one from their point of view but not from ours.
“We stuck in the game and we have done in a lot of games. We need to keep that way because it gives us a chance of scoring at some time in the game.
“It probably didn’t look likely that it was going to come and we’d missed a couple of chances and probably weren’t going to get anymore but it was good. The players did a great job and warranted a point.”