The Blues boss assessed Everton’s situation with candour after the defeat to West Ham United in Chicago

11:59, 31 Jul 2025Updated 12:04, 31 Jul 2025

David Moyes insisted he is not concerned by Everton’s back-to-back defeats in the Premier League Summer Series because he doesn’t have the players he needs or wants in order to be competitive for next season. Following their second half collapse to Bournemouth on Saturday, the Blues threw away a lead given to them by captain Idrissa Gueye to lose 2-1 to West Ham United. Asked whether he was worried by the results, Moyes said: “I’m not overly concerned because I don’t have the players which I need and that I want. We’re nearly up against it now.“We knew when we came we were going to be really up against it, so it was never going to be us coming here and winning it, but we finished above two of these teams here at the end of last season, so we have to get back on it. But at the moment, until we get our better players back and add to the squad, we are always going to struggle. In the early pre-season friendlies we had, we struggled because we didn’t have enough bodies and not enough quality.”

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Moyes, who stated that he had no transfer updates to share, has already revealed he’d have expected to have brought in more new players by now and even if he does get some further additions, he conceded having them ready in time will be a tough ask.

He said: “That’s really difficult. So, that’s why you always attempt to get the players in early if you can because you’d rather have that.

“There’s a bigger turnover of players now at clubs than there used to be. It used to be: ‘Let’s sign maybe three or four players, tops.’ But because of the way it’s bigger squads and with boys not getting a game, they want to go, you’re finding there’s a bigger revolving door of players. So, a lot of clubs will be signing quite big numbers which are bigger than they have done in the past.“But ours is partly because of the position we had with players. We wanted to have the players in a lot sooner, especially coming here, I knew we were going to be incredibly short. We’ve not been able to start Tarky [James Tarkowski] and Jarrad [Branthwaite], and we went to Newcastle, who were chasing a Champions League place, on the final day of last season and won without them, so there’s no excuse, but those boys are really important to the team.”Although only serial title winners Sir Alex Ferguson at Manchester United and Arsene Wenger at Arsenal have now taken charge of more Premier League matches than Moyes, it was put to him that, with the move to Hill Dickinson Stadium, this could be the biggest season of his long career.

The 62-year-old said: “I think every year is the biggest challenge you face because every year is different and you don’t know how it’s going to be. When I came in, back in January, I didn’t think we’d be pushing up to finish above Manchester United, West Ham and Tottenham, but it starts again and we have to try and be ready for it. But we’re not ready to perform well enough in this tournament and we’re not ready to start the Premier League season.”

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In terms of where he wants to improve the most, Moyes was unequivocal. He said: “I think our attacking play has been really poor. We’ve not created anything like enough opportunities or chances. I think our play in that area of the pitch has been really below par. But we’ve made individual mistakes that has showed us up for that as well, it’s stood out. “Tonight there were some goalkeeping mistakes and, at the weekend, there were a couple of mistakes against Bournemouth as well. If you look at the goals we’ve conceded, hey, football might be about that, but not as individual as the last two games.”It was an error that gifted West Ham an equaliser through Lucas Paqueta as understudy goalkeeper Mark Travers made a hash of a punched clearance that he knocked onto his own head.

Asked what he thought of the Irishman’s display, Moyes said: “It’s a very difficult question, because you know the answer. He didn’t perform well tonight, he knows that, we know that.”One bright spot for Everton was the second half introduction of Tarkowski, who had not played since suffering a hamstring injury against Manchester City in April.

Moyes said: “One of the positives was getting Tarky back for 20 minutes. He’s been out for the best part of 14 weeks now, so getting Tarky back is really important. A big strength of the team is probably Tarky and Jarrad and the goalkeeper. So to get Tarky back today was good.”