ECHO writers Joe Thomas, Chris Beesley and Connor O’Neill offer their thoughts in the first instalment of our two-part review of Everton's season
Everton's players celebrate the 3-0 home win over Chelsea and (inset) beating Fulham at Craven Cottage - one of their seven away victories - but (inset) there was disappointment at Wolves in the Carabao Cup
Everton's players celebrate the 3-0 home win over Chelsea and (inset) beating Fulham at Craven Cottage - one of their seven away victories - but (inset) there was disappointment at Wolves in the Carabao Cup
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Everton have completed the 2025/26 campaign, their historic first season at Hill Dickinson Stadium, and members of the ECHO sportsdesk are offering their thoughts on proceedings with a review of Everton’s season.
A two-part special sees Joe Thomas, Chris Beesley and Connor O’Neill give their conclusions on the Blues’ offerings from a landmark year. Here’s the first instalment…
What was your high point of Everton’s season?
JT: The win over Chelsea. Everton’s form had been positive for weeks and this was a perfect storm.
A deserved, comfortable win over what – at the time – still felt a premium opposition on a day when the atmosphere reached new levels at the home game. Everton had been on a good run going into that game, while the atmosphere had been bubbling up nicely from the game with Manchester United, even if that did end in a narrow defeat.
This felt like the players and supporters combined to their full potential and provided a statement victory in their new home on a day when I think 50,000 Blues realised they could harness the physical design of the stadium to genuinely influence events on the pitch. It was a breakthrough moment and made Europe feel a distinct possibility.
CB: Given the hugely frustrating way things finished, we must all try and keep level heads and remember that this was an historical campaign that included its fair share of highlights that it would be churlish to throw away like the baby in the bathwater when licking our wounds over the alarming dip in results from the home derby onwards. Before David Moyes returned, Everton had won just one Premier League away game in the previous 12 months, but since then they have now triumphed on the road a dozen times.
This season alone there was the victory at an Aston Villa side who had won their previous 11 matches at home and would finish the campaign by blowing Freiburg away in the Europa League final and ruining Pep Guardiola’s Etihad Stadium farewell party; becoming the first team in Premier League history to beat Manchester United at Old Trafford after being reduced to 10 men (just 13 minutes into the contest when Idrissa Gueye was dismissed for slapping team-mate Michael Keane, a scenario that could have seen many teams crumble); Everton’s first-ever Premier League triumph at Bournemouth; the Blues’ second wins in less than a year at Newcastle United, Nottingham Forest and Fulham plus a swashbuckling early success at Wolves.
While these successes on Everton’s travels help paint the full picture of the season, to disappointed supporters who perhaps only got to see the home matches, ultimately making the move to Hill Dickinson Stadium itself has to be my high point. Given that the Blues played at their previous home, Goodison Park, for 133 years and that’s longer than any human has been around, this was more than a ‘once in a lifetime moment.’
ECHO writers Christopher Beesley and Connor O'Neill (back) join colleague Joe Thomas (front, with Tony Scott) in the Press Box ahead of Everton's inaugural first team game in front of fans at Hill Dickinson Stadium against Roma
ECHO writers Christopher Beesley and Connor O'Neill (back) join colleague Joe Thomas (front, with Tony Scott) in the Press Box ahead of Everton's inaugural first team game in front of fans at Hill Dickinson Stadium against Roma
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We all loved ‘The Grand Old Lady’ but she was long past her best and it can be no coincidence that the longest trophy drought in the club’s history has corresponded with Goodison’s fall from grace after spending the vast majority of her existence as being the pre-eminent club ground in the country. The move was a long time in coming but hopefully for Evertonians, the best things come for those who wait.
A fortnight after the dress rehearsal against Roma, being inside Hill Dickinson Stadium for the 2-0 win over Brighton & Hove Albion in the first competitive fixture was a privilege and a pleasure as the Blues began a new chapter in their story, by the banks of the Mersey.
CON: The victories over Chelsea at home and Manchester United away stand out, but the game against Brighton & Hove Albion back in August was the real high point. To see the Blues playing in their new home on the bank of the Mersey, something that so many said would never happen, was a sight to behold. The atmosphere as well in the build-up to kick-off was something that will live with me forever. We were watching history unfold, and the fact that the Blues claimed all three points put the cap on the perfect day.
What was your low point?
JT: There were a few difficult points in the campaign. The Sunderland defeat was brutal, the Liverpool home defeat felt cruel, and the home disintegrations to Brentford, Bournemouth, Spurs and Newcastle were bleak spots that offered consistent reality checks. This was a project still in its infancy.
I do think the Carabao Cup defeat to Wolves was a bad one though. Everton had started the season well, already won at Molineux and Wolves were clearly in a relegation fight even then.
A few of the favourites were knocked out in the second round, and this felt like a competition that could open up for Everton in a season when most other top-flight sides had different priorities. The long wait for silverware may hang over this club but to win a trophy you have to have a cup run, something the Blues haven’t had for too long.
Moyes made too many changes. I think he misjudged his squad players, the size of the opportunity and the belief supporters were starting to build that the Carabao Cup held potential for Everton this season. That was a bad night.
CB: The home derby and the combination of all-too-familiar hard luck stories with Everton’s disallowed goal, injuries to Beto and Jarrad Branthwaite and then the manner of the Liverpool winner in the dying seconds can be traced to being the starting point of where the rot set in but the final game of the season at Hill Dickinson Stadium felt like a dramatic tipping point.
Even when the Blues were winning, it was for me – from both teams – the worst game I’d seen all year. So, when the hosts collapsed, Sunderland leapfrogged them in the table and went on to clinch European football with another win over Chelsea on the final day, things felt a whole lot worse.
Everton had been unfortunate at times during their seven-match winless run at the end of the season, especially when it came to being screwed over by VAR again. All five members of the Premier League’s Key Match Incidents panel unanimously agreed the Blues should have been awarded a penalty when David Silva wrestled Merlin Rohl to the ground and if that had been given, there would have been the chance to restore a two-goal cushion against Manchester City, record what would have been only a second win over Pep Guardiola in a decade and boost morale for the run-in.
However, Moyes’ men only had themselves to blame against Sunderland with a flat display that left them with a losing record for the campaign and ultimately as they flopped once more at Spurs, it was West Ham doing THEM the favour on the final day to avoid the potential humiliation of finishing in a lower position in the table than the previous year.
CON: Where to start. The end of the campaign was terrible; the way the Blues exited both cup competitions was dreadful, but the real low point was the home Merseyside derby defeat. Liverpool arrived at Hill Dickinson Stadium on the ropes, and the Blues had the chance to make history and put themselves firmly in the European fixture. But what transpired was just very Everton. And, if we are being honest, the minute Virgil van Dijk scored, Everton’s season was over because David Moyes and his side never recovered.
They really should be playing in Europe next season; they might never get a better opportunity either. To be in such a good position at the start of April of securing a top-eight finish and then ending up 13th is so disappointing.
TOMORROW: Goal of the season, player of the season and biggest disappointment