The Everton manager named a much-changed side for the Carabao Cup loss at Wolverhampton Wanderers
22:58, 23 Sep 2025Updated 01:07, 24 Sep 2025
Moyes during the clash with Wolves (Photo by Clive Mason/Getty Images)
David Moyes said he had no regrets about making seven changes to his starting line-up as Everton were knocked out of the Carabao Cup. The Blues boys left a host of key players, including Jack Grealish and Iliman Ndiaye, on the bench as he offered a first start to Tyler Dibling and opportunities to the likes of Carlos Alcaraz, Thierno Barry and Dwight McNeil.
All four of those players were withdrawn before the hour mark in the 2-0 defeat to Wolves. Moyes appeared to concede they did not reach the levels of the teammates who won so well at Molineux in the Premier League last month.
Speaking after the game, Moyes said he was “disappointed” with the cup exit but disputed the idea the game was a missed opportunity.
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He said: “Well, we were coming to another Premier League team, so I don’t think you can say it’s a missed opportunity.
“I don’t know if Wolves would have said the same, but we’re disappointed.”
Asked to explain his changes, which also saw starts for Seamus Coleman, Tim Iroegbunam and Mark Travers, he said: “[There were] No real reasons.
“We’ve got a lot of good players and we’ve got players in the squad who are getting back to fitness, some of them who are not, so we wanted to give some of them an opportunity to show what they can do.
“The team have been playing at a really good level and it was a chance to see if others could join it.”
Questioned whether he believed anyone who received an opportunity made a positive impression, he responded: “Well, they’ve got a level to get up to now because we’ve seen the levels, you saw it in the second half, the performance levels, how much better it was.
“The players who we introduced made a huge difference to the team. So we want everybody to play at that level.
“We didn’t play at the level in the first half, but I don’t think Wolves did either.
“I didn’t think they were necessarily any better at that time in the game.”