The NSNO Everton Forums

Sir Stealth wrote: ↑Mon May 18, 2026 6:39 am Been a bit of a horror show as of late

Yesterday was really poor. We didn’t particularly deserve to be leading . HT we had 39% possession, and that’s at home to a fairly average Sunderland side. The whole approach from the off seemed super conservative, you can’t set up against mid table or lower table sides like that. Especially if there’s no pace to hit them with on the counter. Rohl was one of the few players to emerge with any credit yesterday I thought. KDH didn’t have any movement or options when he got the ball as the full backs don’t really provide width and want to just release the ball as soon as they get it, but not then bomb on to give us an option, and it’s been like that all season

Except yesterday Ndiaye was miles off it and Grealish wasn’t playing so the usual reliable options for KDH to pass to weren’t there

As soon as that ball to Beto was botched by Ndiaye on the counter, everyone in the stadium feared what was to come.

Defence is the most worrying area of the team for me. The O’Brien/Tarkowski/Keane/Mykolenko back 4 has been in place for most of the season. The only one I want to see starting next season is O’Brien but only at centre back. The Brobbey goal yesterday reminded me of the Haaland one the other week where they seem to just have a free run against 2 slow centre backs and score with ease

David Moyes hasn’t been a bad appointment by any stretch of the imagination. I’m sure that we’ve got to remember where we’ve been in the last few years to where we are this season. It’s never felt like we’ve been in any relegation trouble this season.

However we have seen all the things that frustrated us with his first spell return. Sticking with the same players and the knife to a gunfight mentality and never really pushing on when we have the chance to

Having read that post earlier about the differences between him and the transfer committee (or whatever they are called) and how poorly West Ham recruited - I can see a nightmare scenario next season where we sign a young right back who Moyes doesn’t trust, an ageing Stones that is always injured which pretty much leaves us with the same back 4 as this season as Aznou isn’t trusted either

Soucek brought in for a geriatric centre mid pair alongside Gana, an over reliance on Grealish plus a veteran striker like Jimenez brought in as he doesn’t trust Beto or Barry

The lack of minutes for Patterson, Aznou, Rohl, George, Dibling, Alcaraz etc this season has been one of the biggest disappointments

There needs to be agreement and harmony between the manager and recruitment, if there’s not then I’m swaying towards it being the manager who needs to leave out of the 2

Cantoffee wrote: ↑Sun May 17, 2026 11:29 pm I think if the right manager is available and interested he'll be at risk. He was fine 5 weeks ago but just an incredibly pathetic run of games given the opportunity.

Glasner and Iraola both potential candidates and I wouldn't be surprised if the Friedkin's had a little chat with both.

If he does survive the summer he'll have a very short leash to start next season as a result of this run.

Fynci wrote: ↑Mon May 18, 2026 1:50 am How quick we forget! He's settled things for the first time in forever. As much as we're disappointed after a lousy result, this season has been the first in a long time where we're not thinking the worst. Europe wasn't on the cards for weeks, and with our squad depth it's likely a blessing. He'll be here another season.

blueToffee wrote: ↑Mon May 18, 2026 4:04 am I was looking at a West Ham thread on reddit about pending relegation and there was some back and forth about the rights and wrongs of letting Moyes go.

It was a fairly level headed back and forth but one comment did stick out on the recruitment:

"By the time he was sacked we had one of the oldest starting squads in the league. In his second season our most expensive transfer was Nikola Vlasic for £33.5M.

In 2022 we bought Aguerd, Areola, Flynn Downes, Scamaca, Maxwel Cornet (still on the books), Thilo Kehrer, Paqueta, Luizao, and Danny Ings. Ings became one of the highest, if not highest, paid players on the squad.

In 2023 we bought Andy Irving, Mavropanos, Edson Alvarez, James Ward Prowse, and Kudus. The latter three all cost £30M+ each.

There were some great transfers in there, but largely a massive waste of transfer funds of players past their best days. Or rather, uninspired transfers for a team that was playing Europa League."

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I think this is probably the biggest overall concern over Moyes and it's mainly a financial one. I don't mind a smattering of experience, it's good in many respects, but we can't afford as a club to have a transfer committee taking chances on younger talent and a manager not willing to give them playing time. Ultimately that will in some form lead to a showdown between Moyes and some others at the club.

As the man who once listed Mark Travers among “the most exciting talents in European football” David Moyes would continue to platform in his relentless “desire to champion” youth, it was interesting to hear Everton CEO Angus Kinnear’s review of the season last week.

“As we look back on the season, we can be ‘happily dissatisfied’,” he said. “We were able to stop looking over our shoulder by Christmas with relegation fears all but extinguished and, as we enter the last two fixtures, we still have something to play for, with European qualification continuing to be fiercely contested.”

It does, to be fair, continue to be fiercely contested. Just not by Everton, who went into the international break on the back of a 3-0 victory over Chelsea which put the Toffees three points off the Champions League places, and have come out of it on a six-game winless run to slide them into the bottom half and render even the Conference League basically unreachable.

Moyes admitted “we didn’t look like a European team at times today” and “are probably not quite ready” to compete on the continent after their latest defeat.

And that would be fine if they hadn’t just been beaten and leapfrogged by newly-promoted Sunderland, who really shouldn’t be ready but looked far more so than an imploding Everton.

The champion of youth ended the game with Seamus Coleman (37), Michael Keane (33) and James Tarkowski (33) in the backline, with late substitutions and a curious fragility costing them again.

In this depressing six-game run, Everton have either scored the opening goal or conceded it and equalised, only to draw or lose. Moyes was right that they had “messed up big time” against Sunderland, but it was merely part of a larger trend of avoidable lapses.

It lends itself to a potentially biblical Be Careful What You Wish For scenario.

Few managers embody that warning quite like Moyes – and West Ham make for an unavoidably uncomfortable case study in ignoring it.

But with Andoni Iraola being courted by Crystal Palace, Oliver Glasner on the market and *shudder* managers not proven in the Premier League out there somewhere, for Everton to not consider their options would be predictably and cripplingly unambitious.

It is undoubtedly the way they will go. “Whilst the media and other fanbases clamour for frequent managerial change,” Kinnear said last week, “we value the stability that David brings and the ability this gives the whole club to plan for the long term.”

And there is plenty to be said for that. After three successive seasons of battling for Premier League survival, the groundwork has been laid for Everton to push on.

The call, then, should be to thank Moyes for his impeccable work before shaking hands, parting ways and trying to build on those foundations with a more progressive coach.

It damns Everton that no-one, even just for a second, thinks they actually will.

Toddacelli wrote: ↑Mon May 18, 2026 11:36 am All I’m thinking now is who would want to sign for him? Announcing a new, up and coming manager at the end of the season would transform our recruitment.