Everton FC correspondent Joe Thomas assesses the club's position on and off the pitch heading into an exciting conclusion to the season
David Moyes acknowledges the fans after the Premier League win over Chelsea at Hill Dickinson Stadium. Photo by Alex Livesey/Getty Images
David Moyes acknowledges the fans after the Premier League win over Chelsea at Hill Dickinson Stadium. Photo by Alex Livesey/Getty Images
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Everton will enter the final weeks of the season with the tantalising prospect of Europe within reach.
A return to midweek football on the continent was a distant dream during recent traumatic years of relegation fights on the pitch and boardroom, ownership and financial turmoil off it.
But the return of David Moyes, combined with the fresh resources and stability offered by new owners the Friedkin Group (TFG), have helped transform a club faster than most supporters could have dreamt.
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For Moyes, taking Everton back into Europe has been set as an expectation more than an ambition. When he first met the press in January 2025 after being recalled to Finch Farm to help save a club collapsing into a fourth successive survival fight, he injected belief into a club that had lost the ability to see promise in the future.
As the threat of the Championship loomed once more, Moyes instead spoke of returning Everton to the upper echelons of the Premier League and to European football. He has since proved those words were far from empty. He quickly led Everton away from danger and across 15 months of his second spell he has taken Everton on a dizzying adventure dappled with experiences that will last long in the memories of those associated with the Blues.
Moyes ensured Everton avoided defeat in the final Merseyside derby at Goodison Park and allowed the club to celebrate the final games at the Grand Old Lady without having to fear her life would be tarnished by a fall into the Championship.
His teams have broken longstanding Premier League curses at Old Trafford, the Vitality Stadium and Villa Park and, with the likes of Jack Grealish and Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall, he has sprinkled some glamour into a weather-beaten squad.
The thumping of Chelsea at Hill Dickinson Stadium before the international break suggested that, after a difficult winter, Everton may have banished their troubles at their new home - a feat that is crucial to their ambitions for the rest of the season. Liverpool and Manchester City are still both to experience a visit to the banks of the Mersey and it is difficult to see Everton reaching Europe without exploiting home advantage to some effect against the Champions League-chasing pair and Sunderland, one of several close rivals in the hunt for Europe.
This is not a season in which success will be defined by qualification for Europe, tough though failure on that front would now be to take. Sustainable progress is the desire of TFG and while Moyes has no doubt that Europe would benefit this club, there are many who question whether it would be a destination reached too far, too soon - one in which the extra demands would break a squad that is still considered several transfer windows from having the depth required to compete on the continent while maintaining a slot in the top half of the Premier League.
How Everton would navigate that challenge is hopefully a question for the future but in Moyes and the ownership the club appears to have stewards who will do everything possible to ensure this a rise built on solid foundations.
While Moyes and his players - who have fallen over themselves to acknowledge how the manager has raised expectations and standards and made Europe seem realistic this season - focus on league position, TFG have several serious issues to overcome in the coming weeks.
The release of the club accounts for 2024/25 - which included the first six months of their ownership - showed extensive work to balance a club that had lacked stability for too long. The challenges will keep coming though. Should Everton qualify for Europe there will be hope in Houston that their success does not clash with that of sister club Roma and spark intense scrutiny from UEFA about whether decisive control of the two teams is sufficiently separated for neither to suffer at the expense of the other. TFG believe they have a solution but have not explained their plan. It appears to be one that has not yet been tested by UEFA, however.
The owners will also have to take their position on season ticket pricing at a time when club revenue directly influences what can be spent on the pitch, but when matchday attendances provide a decreasing portion of club revenue and when supporters’ finances are set to stretched even further as the impact of the conflict in the Middle East is felt around the world. Who they will choose to partner on deals such as shirt sponsorship will also be watched closely at a club that prides itself on its community values.
Those off-the-pitch issues are very much a sideshow to what will happen on the pitch when Everton return with a trip to Brentford on Saturday. The Bees are their fiercest rivals in the fight to be the upstart that breaks into the top seven and the match at the Gtech will set the tone for the run-in.
Moyes will approach that game with a squad that should be at its strongest for some time. While Grealish, whose future could well be at Everton should discussions go well at the end of the season, is a long-term absentee, only Carlos Alcaraz entered the three-week break with an injury.
The club is managing Jarrad Branthwaite’s workload but his emergence from the bench against Chelsea, alongside pictures of him training this week, provided reassurance that he can play a role in the final two months of the season. Iliman Ndiaye and Vitalii Mykolenko both missed international games during the break through injury - but the preliminary belief in both cases appeared to be that their knocks were not serious. That opinion will of course be tested as they return to Finch Farm.
The battle for Europe is so tight and wrought with such confusion - the permutations remain vast over what league position would ensure qualification - that the coming weeks are guaranteed to be an emotional rollercoaster. But after the feel-good thrashing of Chelsea was compounded by the positive picture detailed by the club accounts, Everton head into this crucial period with momentum and a very real understanding of the joy that comes with having a nervous end to the campaign for all the right reasons after years of sleepless nights worrying about survival.
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