Why Everton and Moyes went back to the future
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Welcome to the Athletic FC podcast with me, Ayo Akinwaleru. After sacking manager Sean Dyche, Everton have brought back David Moyes to replace him. So is Moyes the right choice to rebuild Everton and keep them in the Premier League?

I'm joined today by The Athletic's Everton correspondent, Patrick Boyland, lead writer for The Athletic FC newsletter, Phil Hay, as well as The Athletic's Greg O'Keefe. Paddy, it is never a dull time covering Everton, and we know that for sure, but it has been some explosive start to 2025. Bring us up to speed. How quickly did things move from Sean Dyche's dismissal on Thursday to confirming David Moyes' return on Saturday?

Yeah, I mean, it's all happened in the space of a couple of days, really, certainly less than a week. Everton lost 1-0 against Bournemouth last Saturday in what would prove to be Sean Dyche's final game. And over the course of the next few days, he had conversations with the hierarchy, which basically, as we're led to believe, went along the lines of,

I think I've taken this as far as I can. Part of that is just he was wearied from the last few years. They've drained everybody associated with the club. So I kind of understood where he was coming from there. But it was a shock. And certainly we didn't get an impression that he was likely to be bulleted by the owners. So we end up in this really bizarre situation where Dyche signals that he kind of wants to go. Everybody knows he's going.

But his contractual situation needed to be resolved. And he was still turning up at Finch Farm, the Everton's training ground, and taking training sessions while that severance was being agreed. Fast forward a few days and he's gone, obviously, Thursday, three hours before the cup tie against Peterborough United. Another strange turn of events when you consider the timing. But then things move so quickly from there. David Moyes very quickly becomes the

The favourite candidate, he speaks to the club formally for the first time on Friday. By Friday evening, it is all agreed. A two and a half year deal is all agreed. And the only thing missing at that point was the official statement confirming it all, which came on Saturday morning. So another rollercoaster week in the history of...

modern history of Everton Football Club. You know, you talk about that statement and I took a quick look yesterday. I mean, no love lost there. I mean, there was no thank you so much for, you know, keeping us up and also the point deductions that we had. You did a sterling job. I mean, I don't know, but do you think Sean Dyche deserves a little bit more respect? Yeah, I mean, I think he deserves an awful lot of credit for last season and I stand by that. I mean, you look at the hurdles that were placed in front of not only him, but the club at large.

PSR breaches, two separate rounds of points deductions, lots of his best players sold because the club was in such dire financial circumstances and then all the, as he would refer to it, the noise around the club, takeover speculation, speculation even over administration. I think that does wear people down.

What I would say though is that the strength of feeling comes through in the statement. This was not a departure that ended on good terms. Yeah, Greg, let's bring you in because you've written for The Athletic on this stability. David Moyes, who is now going to be Everton manager, brought to Everton in his first spell, having seen most of it unfold firsthand really.

On social media, some people are describing him as the Moisire, which I actually had to chuckle about. But, you know, how different is the job he's inheriting now compared to when he left for Manchester United in 2013? I'm looking at a league with vastly different types of managers, vastly different types of players, and the competition is absolutely insane.

Well, you're spot on. And not only is the competition and the league transformed since then, although, in fairness, David Moyes has been in and around that during that period, so he won't come inside with a cold start. I think more importantly, Everton has been completely transformed since then. Not necessarily for the better,

But he'll come back and he'll recognise and have that emotional resonance with so much around the club. But I think he'll soon find that it's a very different animal from the one he left back in 2013. The fan base in subtle ways have changed. They've almost been ground down. The growth of social media, the power of that in terms of influencing mood around the fan base now is stronger than it certainly was when he left 2013.

And I think it will probably be interesting to see how he reconciles the new Everton, if you like, with what he left behind. It's funny what you're saying about the Moisiah, because that almost, things like that almost, I've noticed a few people saying, you know, his return gave them a sense of that kind of nostalgia for something that was not relatively short period of time ago.

But it just shows you again how much has changed. And yeah, it was in many ways the last really consistently positive period for Everton where, as Paddy said then, where there wasn't some sort of pitfall or lurching circumstances just around the corner. You know, they got off, post David Moyes, they got off to a really upbeat start with Roberto Martinez. And barring the odd peaks and turn, it's been pretty chaotic.

So he's got a lot of credit in the bank generally. He's got a lot of achievements he can point to from his time at Everton that no one's been able to consistently replicate since. Phil, I'm just thinking about Sean Dyche as well. What do you make of the sacking? Do you feel it was something that was inevitable? And is it more to do with the timing of it that's a bit tricky? Well, it was inevitable. And I think the reason for that in the end, the big red flag was

Deitch himself saying that he felt he'd run out of road. I think when your manager is checking out, you have very little choice but to act on that. My assumption is, and I'm basing this on common sense, that the ideal scenario for TFG would have been for Deitch to stay in position, to see this season off, to get it gone, and then to take stock in the summer. I'm not suggesting they would have renewed his contract in the summer. I think quite the opposite is true. But

It would have given them some time to breathe. It would have given them a bit more time to get the ducks in a row. And, you know, remembering that they've taken over mid-season, which is never the ideal time to come into a club this summer. There's a bit more safety and space in the summer to properly do what it is that you want to do.

he did a really solid job at Everton. He had no budget to speak of. The squad's clearly fairly inadequate and there was sort of organisational chaos around him for the whole time. But I think it started to look less solid recently and almost gave you the impression that the cycle, the dice cycle was, if not done, was very close to the end of the line. And the thing about his football is that there isn't a whole lot of variety or flair or adaptability in it. And I think Everton

If it's starting to run aground and the players are losing faith or the crowd are losing faith, or let's be honest, if Dyche is losing faith in it as well, then you don't have too many options in front of you. And I think it is the right decision. I think, like Paddy says, the statement gives you a fair impression of the kind of friction that there was before.

towards the end. But the bigger mistake in this situation would have been to hang on to him. Paddy, Phil just talks about flair and adaptability. And I'm thinking of David Moyes' last part of his time at West Ham. And those are kind of words atoned to David Moyes' style of football, you know, not as much flair, not as adaptable, couldn't work with those attacking players. Do we get a sense of the brief Moyes has in

for his time at Everton and also what that motivation looks like for David Moyes. What do you think he's hoping to achieve? Not just survival because it's a two and a half year contract. Are they looking to maybe build on him now or is he the guy to get Everton back to running ways? Yeah, I think it's really interesting that they've gone for somebody like David Moyes because on the face of it, the transition from what Sean Dyche was doing to what David Moyes potentially will look to do

is not actually that extreme and one of the other names kind of doing the rounds internally at Everton before he went to West Ham was Graham Potter. Potter's a very good coach by the way we're trying to get Everton's players to go from a very direct one-dimensional system to what Graham Potter tried to do particularly at Brighton to me would have been pretty problematic.

So the transition should be easier and more seamless for the players. And I actually think in the short term that should help them. Now, onto Moyes himself. It was only in December that he did an interview, I think it was with Sky, where he effectively ruled out the prospect of joining some relegation clubs. He'd had interest from Wolverhampton Wanderers, he'd had interest from Leicester City.

And he said something along the lines of, I don't want to be down at the bottom in a scrap again. The difference with Everton is that there is an emotional connection. There's a resonance there. He spent so much time at West Ham, obviously, and did really well for long periods. But Everton are still his club. He still had roots in the northwest of England. He's still keeping an eye regularly on what's going on. There'll be lots of long-standing staff members. When he walks through the door today,

on Monday and his first day in charge at Finch Farm, there'd be lots of long-term staff members that he still knows and is on positive terms with. So my sense is that Everton were the only club down there in such a predicament that Moyes would have gone for. Could I flip that around quickly, Paddy, and ask you,

Is this the only window in which Everton would have gone for Moyes? What I mean is, had they made it to the end of the summer and say they'd been able to, I don't know if they'd gone for a new sporting director, say if Thirlwall was to leave at the end of his contract, if Dyche was to exit and it was a completely new fabric in vision and everything else, would at that stage, minus the jeopardy of relegation, would Moyes have been in the running, do you think? I think this was David Moyes' best chance, comfortably.

to take the Everton job again and part of that is just circumstance you look at where Everton are right now there is one goal for the rest of this season as bad as it sounds it's just staying up stay up yeah and getting into the pro get into the the new stadium next season as a premier league outfit that's that that's all that matters right now so who who can you go for in those circumstances well the checklist probably looks something like this premier league experience so

in most cases navigating sides out of troubles like these. Somebody who was importantly available and very quickly with Graham Potter gone, David Moyes is there, Liam Englarge and to answer Phil's question, I think this was the best chance for him to get the job. The two and a half year deal essentially means that he is protected. He's got this period to try and keep Everton in the league. He should have next season to try and stabilise Everton and

But if things go south, then the new ownership needs to make another change. They're back in a situation that previous owner Farhad Moshiri had where he was potentially having to pay off somebody for 12, 18 months of the deal. So maybe that's just a sign of the times and maybe that's just the strength of the hand David Moyes had in negotiating. But there has been a sense from the TFG side as well.

that they feel he is the one to bring stability in this first chapter. And it is very similar to what happened at Roma with Claudio Ranieri being appointed too. Yeah, I definitely want to talk about that a little later on. Greg, just thinking about Everton as a football club and sort of the club David Moyes is inheriting, do you think there is...

still a bit of baggage here when it comes to the tradition of the club and the reputation of Everton as one of the longest serving Premier League teams out there. But also you look at the likes of Newcastle Villa, Spurs, who are now where you would like to think Everton were trying to get to regular bits of European football, for instance. Is there a bit of baggage for him to deal with there? Because also with a two and a half year deal, I mean, I don't know how much he's going to get them back to those kind of spaces, right? Yeah.

Yeah, of course. And who knows if he sees, you know, if we see in two and a half years, David Moyes is still the manager at the end of that deal. Like Paddy alluded to, it's just, you know, he did have a lot of leverage, didn't he, in this contract negotiation. So I know some supporters had spoken about hoping it emulated the way the Ranieri situation at Roma, where he came in as an interim stability appointment and then took him to the summer. But to answer your question about the baggage, yeah,

Again, it's all about that sort of 11 or 10 year gap, if you like, where David Moyes has, Everton have gone from under David Moyes, regularly competing neck and neck with Aston Villa, taking points off Tottenham in so many memorable games, home and away.

taking points regularly, beating Manchester City home and away. And in that sense, it makes him probably for the right now a really, really strong candidate because he knows Everton's potential. You know, Everton don't necessarily expect to see ticky-tacky, free-flowing football every week where there's goals coming left, right and centre. But they do want to see

a little bit more than the sort of turgid one-dimensional stuff that Sean Dyche was able to provide this season. And if you look back to 2013 and before that 2012, when David Moyes' Everton football was at its best, I would argue, he can do that. Now, how he can do it short of new arrivals with the squad he's got at the moment is going to be the real challenge for him. And you're right, there is baggage in the sense that now Everton's peers are

well, clubs that he's seemingly bypassed like Wolves. Not necessarily Leicester, but certainly those sides in the bottom quarter of the Premier League. And he'll be aware of Evans' situation, but he's very pragmatic. He's very intense.

and I don't think he'll get himself get too bogged down with this concept of like the baggage of what they were and where they can be if he is still the manager in two and a half years time then I think then he will be addressing the need to get them to the side of the club

that will go and take points off the top six and maybe start to creep up towards challenging some regular beer in that top seven top eight so I think yes there's baggage but I think he can he can definitely cope with it with the experience he's had since then there are some striking parallels as well between the situation he inherits now at Everton and when he went into West Ham both sides one point above the relegation zone and

So Moyes' experience, not only at Everton, but also in East London, stands him in good stead for this because what he will want to do is basically emulate that stint at West Ham, stabilise Everton, keep them up in the first instance, but then move the project on. I think Greg's right to point to that some of the football played by Moyes' teams, I mean, certainly he is pragmatic and at times it was a tough watch.

But there was also some brilliant football played. I mean, I saw a goal during the rounds from what was then a UEFA Cup game against Larissa in the 2007-2008 season. And it was brilliant football, brilliant, brilliant football, free-flowing with full-backs pushed on.

wingers tucked inside, knitting the play together and a fantastic finish from Leon Osman. And what we have to remember is they had some really good players at Everton. He recruited those players. Well, Greg, I know you've got to leave us. So thank you so much for your time, brother. Thank you. Appreciate it, mate. Well, next, we'll look at the role of Everton's new owners, the Friedkin Group, and their decision to make a change of manager.

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Yeah.

Yeah, I think this is the pattern of behaviour that they have shown when faced with a difficult situation. At Roma, when they appointed Jose Mourinho, Jose was their first hire. I'm sure that they would have liked to have made a similar box office hire to mark the beginning of their time at Everton. But I think they were more in control of that situation at Roma than they are in this one. And...

the situation they find themselves in, the reality is I think they just have to go with someone who knows the club, who has an affinity for the club and is willing to step in in a time of need. And that has been the case at Roma. When they moved on to Sommarino, it was Daniele De Rossi. De Rossi was

was someone who they knew would be universally accepted by the fans, which was going to be difficult for them because Mourinho had become kind of bigger than the club and more associated with the success of the club than they had. So sacking him was potentially a very unpopular decision that was immediately kind of ameliorated by, okay, you haven't got Jose anymore, but look, it's Daniele. You know, you all love Daniele. So brilliant. And then when they fired him, which was a...

unpopular decision which has still kind of turned the supporters against them. They tried to bring in someone different, someone who'd been recommended by their CEO, Lina Sololuku, who brought in Ivan Juric. He did terribly and they've gone back to what they know. Every Roman's grandfather, Claudio Ranieri, please come out of retirement and do us a favour by saving this season. And so...

When we were reporting this, I felt it was... Moyes was the natural person that they would look to in all of this. And as Paddy has reported, so that transpired. Paddy, Moyes felt like a natural appointment, but are all fans...

across that because you know you remember when he left for Manchester United Everton were in a really decent place and you can't begrudge a guy for wanting an amazing challenge like that to go to a big club like Manchester United but you know there must be you know some fans that probably aren't too happy that he left the club in such a way. Yeah and not only that because of course he did run down his contract to go to Manchester United some will accept him doing that but then look at some of his actions and

in the first summer that he was in charge at Old Trafford. He tried to take Marouane Fellaini and Leighton Baines in a cut-price deal. Ended up actually with Marouane Fellaini for, I think, more than his buyout clause, which had expired earlier that summer.

And I think the way that went down alienated some Everton fans and some Everton fans will still remember those moments, of course. You'll also get a section of the fan base that maybe wanted a glitzier appointment for the free King Group's first hire as Everton manager.

or at the very least didn't want to go back to something that was in the past. But for most, this is a reversion to the comfort blanket, to that warm, fuzzy feeling that supporters had when they would turn up at Goodison, knowing that at the very least, the side would work hard, give everything for the shirt, there would be a connection with the manager in the dugout, in a way there simply wasn't with Sean Dyche. He never really tried to build a rapport with fans.

So for all those reasons, I would imagine that the response on Wednesday, when he takes his first game for his second spell as Everton manager against Aston Villa, would be really quite positive. And there will be a feeling that, right,

we're in trouble here. We need to get behind the team and we've got the right man in the dugout to help us do that. Phil, do you think David Moyes is going into this with his eyes wide open? I mean, I only say this because I'm looking at a two and a half year deal. That fundamentally, as we've explained, sort of looks at hopefully surviving the Premier League and not being relegated and moving into this wonderful stadium. But there's an ambitious guy in there.

And you're thinking, you know, if this goes all well, there's nothing stopping him from thinking, do you know what? I want to do this. I want to keep going. I want another two years at least to see where I can take this. No, definitely. And to echo what everybody else has said, I do think it's a clever appointment and a very savvy one at this particular juncture. James mentioned the fact that, you know, De Rossi was popular at Roma. I think the big difference is that De Rossi's managerial career is...

shall we say brief, whereas Moyes obviously has a long, long track record of doing some good jobs in certain places, not so good jobs in other places, but he's been around for a long time and he knows the English league and the English game inside out. I suppose one thing you have to ask is how many jobs

As time went on, we're going to come up for Moyes. How many clubs would have seen Moyes as the manager to lead some form of project or big long-term vision? The answer is probably not so many in the Premier League and this might be actually as good a fit as there was going to be for him.

after his exit from West Ham. The strange thing about Dyche was that right from the very start, Dyche always felt like a bit of an extended stopgap, essentially until Everton could get themselves onto safer ground and more stable ground. And I suppose, you know, further down the line, find something a bit sexier than Everton

than him and I'm not saying that Moyes is necessarily that but he does look like a really safe pair of hands and even if he's not you know wildly expansive manager or whatever else the very fact that the dice cycle seemed to be grinding to a halt kind of told you that that wasn't necessarily going to

keep them up. Whereas I think with Moyes, they have a strong chance of that. And I think he will do good things there. I think he'll stabilise things pretty quickly. It's very, very pragmatic. I just wouldn't make the mistake of thinking that Moyes had a catalogue of Premier League options out there for him because I very much doubt that that would have been the case. But he's absolutely good enough for this job. James, you know, Sean Dutch being sort of this extended stopgap. I mean, he'd

for the Friedkin Group taking over at Everton, shiny new stadium on its way as well. You know, David Moyes here with a two and a half year deal. Dare I say it, is this another extended stopgap? Because it's not infaseable to see another young, more, dare I say, sexy manager coming in while the club stabilised to take them to that next level. Yeah, I think it's an interesting point because reporting on this,

What I found, it's very different to what the reporting has been around their moves at Roma, for example, where they keep their circle very tight and not a lot of people know what the Friedkin group are thinking. And so that has allowed them to have these blockbuster moments, such as Jose Mourinho all of a sudden out of nowhere is appointed president.

Real sign of ambition. Fans excited. They start selling out the stadium. I'm sure that they would have liked to have done something similar. Not with Jose, because they didn't end on the best of terms. So anyone who lumped on Jose when he was the shortest to be the next Everton manager, I think was mistaken and will have lost money.

Phil says that this is a savvy appointment. I think in some respects, yes, it is. I think in other respects, it's a predictable appointment and it's reflective of an ownership group that...

Yeah, looks to consultancies all the time to come up with ideas and suggest things. And yeah, this is a very easy suggestion for someone to make, be it a consultancy group, be it someone around them, probably the easiest invoice they'll ever make. But you're talking about this stock gap. You do find yourself, you've made a decision that has come out of a situation that you didn't necessarily want to be in.

You've had to find a solution which is one of the few solutions available to you. You're kind of backed into a corner. And Claudio Ranieri at Roma has leveraged that to his advantage. So I will become an executive after this. I will have an input in what the club does and how it is run going forward. I will become a powerful person within the running of your club. Doesn't he just want to retire? I mean, he's 73 now.

Never. So to see Moyes, Paddy, you said it's a two and a half year contract. Yeah, you're locked into Moyes for a while there. In Italy, there's this saying, minestra riscaldata, which is that if you reheat soup, it just never tastes as good as when you first make the soup, right? So when you bring a coach back, it's never as good as the first time. Right.

So in Italy, that is, you know, you bring back Arrigo Sacchi at Milan for a second spell. Yeah, mid-table finish. Yeah, you bring back Capello. It's just not the same. They're not invincible anymore. They're not making Champions League finals. And, you know, okay, Ranieri is a little bit different insofar as he comes in in such desperate situations on the short term that no one really judges, you know, what he does beyond keeping the team up or keeping the team respectable. Okay.

I am curious to see how Moyes does in this second spell, particularly given the structure or lack of structure that is at the club. Paddy can speak to this better than I can. I think there are people at Roma who are surprised at the people who are overseeing A, the Everton acquisition and B, the Everton start-up, if you like, in terms of, right, let's find out the structure for this club. It's Watts and Walker who are involved in this.

who I think when they first were kind of sent to Rome to handle Roma for the Friedkins, I think they'd be quite honest in saying, we're completely new to football. We're Americans. You know, this is completely fresh to us. It's the first time the club is, the first time the company has invested in football. So we're learning here. And how much they learned is up for debate, you know, considering what we're seeing with how Roma since Mourinho left,

has kind of really drifted and, you know, certainly for the money that the Free Kings have put in, it has not...

matched expectation. So, you know, whether the structure that these people can put in place is going to be an effective structure, which allows Moyes to work as well as he possibly can. Although I imagine Moyes will look at this as an opportunity, no? It means like, I've got an opportunity to run this club the way I would like it because I'm experienced. I've been here before. And again, you think with the freekins, is this how ideally they would have liked to set the club up going forward?

So it's, yeah, we'll see how this soup tastes. All right, then I think it's a really good time to leave you be, James. I'll leave you on a reheating old soup. Thank you so much for your time, man. Really insightful as always, James. Pleasure. Okay, so next we'll look ahead to the January transfer window and assess what Everton could do. This is the Athletic FC podcast with Io Akamalera.

Yeah, I mean, what do you ever to need in the January transfer market, Paddy? You know, we've already referenced Everton's lack of attacking threat. Is that something you think they need to take care of in this transfer window? Or is there much more work to do or more pressing issues at hand? Yeah, I would separate this into two columns, two categories. The first is that there was no evidence that

of attacking patterns of play under Sean Dyche. It was so basic to the point where it was Jordan Pickford bangs the ball up to normally Dominic Calvert-Lewin as a lone striker and then hopes that somebody in midfield can get close enough to him to pick up the second ball. So competent coaching where they are focusing on how they're going to play with the ball, how they're going to break down deep blocks and all that kind of stuff will

almost certainly help overnight. But it's also true that Dyche had some pretty blunt tools at his disposal as well, and actually there was a quality issue with the side. We referenced earlier the sustained period where they've had to scramble to

stay afloat financially, they've sold their best players and not been able to invest in the squad. And I think that shows in what you've seen this season as well. There are lots of players here for whom scoring goals or creating goals is not a natural thing for them, which is obviously an issue in itself. So, I mean, I look at the Severson side, really struggled in open play.

really one paced. One of Dyche's big struggles was that he wanted to sit deep, but there was no pace on the counter-attack to hurt sides in the way that, let's say, Nottingham Forest have done so well and so effectively this season. So an insertion of pace into that side, dynamism, fresh ideas not only in coaching, but also in the players that are coming in, and certainly more goal threat as well. And that's not just the striker or the lone striker, by the way. I think that's the positions behind the strikers were.

Jack Harrison, for example, zero goals and zero assists so far this season. Illumin and Dye, a good signing from Marseille, but I think you could get more out of him if he moved into a more central role. Dwight McNeill is being injured and a big blow. They need more attacking options and they need them as soon as possible because it will not have escaped anybody's notice at Goodison that Ipswich and Wolves and Crystal Palace even

relegation rivals are strengthening and have strengthened. So, yeah, time is of the essence really here. Yeah, absolutely spot on. Phil, I'm just looking at the league table. Everton 16th up to Leicester 90th. There's only three points in it. I know Everton have still got a game in hand, but it's a pretty crowded space there. And those are some very hungry teams who will want to escape relegation. How worried are you about

It certainly was after the Bournemouth game. They looked like a team who were regressing and sliding pretty rapidly into trouble. But I think there are some definite positive aspects to this. One is that it's now a case of two teams going down. Southampton are not going to get out of this. I mean, there's just no way from six points at this stage that they're going to get themselves up to 17. So it's two positions that you have to...

I struggle to see Moyes failing to improve the style of play to a degree and on that basis improve the results too. And I would be super surprised actually if he didn't keep them up. I think he's got that and I think he's good enough for that. I suspect it's going to be tight again because Paddy will know a lot more about the PSR situation at Everton, the flexibility of the budget and how much they will improve.

actually be able to play with this month. But I suspect it won't be massive and I can't envisage a total overhaul of the squad or anything resembling that. So, you know, to what degree Moyes is able to use the transfer market remains to be seen. But I think with the basic nuts and bolts that he has, I think we will get improvement there.

And yes, they're in trouble, clearly in trouble and have been really from the start of the season. But you would be more optimistic with Moyes than you were with Dyche a week ago.

Okay. What is the headroom then, Paddy, in terms of PSR? Any wiggle room to bring someone in? There is some. So that's an improvement on recent windows where it's been a case of loans, beg, borrow or steal effectively. And even the deals they did do, often deferred payments with most of the money coming much later down the line. So this is an improvement and it will help. I think if they can get through to the summer as well, they then start on...

increased revenues in the new stadium bigger stadium i think it's about 13 000 seats seats more more corporate potential stadium naming rights deal which they're targeting at the moment so it's very easily just easy to see that in the midterm there'll be an awful lot more headroom january is a bit more problematic because they the new owners have come in but they still have to deal with the sustained heavy losses that factor into that calculation and

Over the summer, Everton felt they needed to sell Ben Godfrey and Lewis Dobbin to stay on the right side of the PSR line. And let's see, but they believe they have done. But there still isn't loads of wiggle room there, as far as we're led to believe. So they'll need to be smart. They'll need to be smart. It might even be a case that they have to look at the resources in the squad at the moment and sacrifice somebody, maybe somebody on the periphery, just to free up a bit more room.

But the freaking group will want to back David Moyes. They will want to be seen to back David Moyes publicly in his first transfer window in charge. I would expect some business. And I think that business has to be at the top end of the pitch.

Because the rest of the squad, if you look at a foundation of Jordan Pickford in goal with James Tarkovsky and Jared Brantwaite, Idrissa Ghanegay in front of them and Abdoulaye Dekore plays like that, that is solid enough. That is better than a lot of what the other sides down there have. The issue is scoring goals. So any meagre resource, any scant resources, they need to go on that top end of the pitch. And it may well be a case of a bit of manoeuvring. One player in, one player out and so on.

Yeah, that's the key one, Phil, isn't it? That recruitment. And I guess all eyes are on recruitment, especially at this moment for David Moyes and Everton. But, you know, I was just thinking, actually, even when it was at West Ham, if you think about it, some might deem him as quite old fashioned, but, you know, don't know how much input he had. But the likes of Pakita came to that squad. The likes of Kudus came to that squad. Obviously, Everton don't have that kind of money right now. But you know what? This recruitment undisputed.

under him is so pivotal definitely and I think back to his previous spell at Everton and what Paddy and Greg said was right he had some really good players under him that were his picks and were worked into the team by him through his coaching and the coaching of his staff and

I don't even think it's just a perception thing with TFG. They will be want to see him to back him, but I think they will want to find things in the transfer market because they will know the consequences of being relegated this season and they'll know that if they get to the end of the season and they stay up, it's not as if it's a complete line in the sand and it's all plain sailing from there. There will still be a lot to sort out, but it does let them breathe properly and it does let them move into the stadium and actually start to exploit it in a sensible way. There's a big difference between

Liverpool say coming to Everton on the first day of the season or Manchester United and a mid-table championship team turning up there next season which is the last thing they want and is the last thing that's going to help them. You get the feeling that it will be tricky because I can't imagine there's a huge amount of money to spend and it feels to me like it really is at the top end of the team where work would really help Moyes. But I think as well the timing of his appointment and the sacking of Dyche is good in the sense that

You can almost, for players who have been offered the chance to come to Everton now, you're almost being invited to get involved in a sort of lovable road rash, like a bit of fun and games. It's a relegation fight, but actually it's a new broom. There'll be a bit of fresh impetus and a bit of fresh passion for it. And it might be great to be in the thick of that. Whereas previously with Day, she was almost being asked to join something which was

Yeah Paddy very very quickly I've just literally realised Merseyside Derby the game in hand for either Liverpool or Liverpool.

and Everton for Everton's survival potentially Liverpool winning the Premier League I mean there's more fire in it now than there ever has been surely Great occasion that Moyes had a decent-ish record at Goodison against Liverpool really not a good record at Anfield but obviously this will be Goodison's final derby too so a big kind of symbolic moment and we've come full circle we've ended up

with David Moyes back at the helm for that final Goodison game, which feels poetic. We may end up with David Moyes, probably will end up with David Moyes leading Everton into the new stadium. So the more things change, the more they stay the same at Everton. LAUGHTER

Right, let's leave it there, gents. Thank you so much for your time. Paddy, Phil, as well as Greg and James who joined us earlier. More on The Athletic on this story, of course. And also, the window is open. Head over to The Athletic for the very latest transfer news. We'll be back tomorrow for more.

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