The Blues boss set out his approach to the season and the reasons why he wants to continue after a challenging summer
Everton manager David Moyes (Photo by David Horton – CameraSport via Getty Images)
David Moyes has never spoken with Dan Friedkin, the chief executive of Everton owners the Friedkin Group.
The Blues boss, who returned to the club 20 months ago, rescued a struggling team from a relegation fight and delivered memorable wins against teams like Manchester United and Chelsea last season, is still yet to hear from the most senior figure at the club, let alone meet him.
The revelation is the latest to raise questions about the extent of TFG’s interest in the club after a week in which they grossly misjudged fan sentiment by exploring the sale of Finch Farm starlet Harrison Armstrong before calling it off amid a backlash from supporters.
The debacle over Armstrong was followed by a troubling end to the transfer window and then reports that TFG are now actively seeking, at the very least, outside investment in Everton. Each of those developments has thrown into instability the club they bought less than two years ago.
The lack of interaction between Dan Friedkin and Moyes adds a further layer to the contrasting attention he appears to pay to the Blues and fellow TFG-owned club Roma, which Friedkin has watched in action on numerous occasions, attended training and taken part in ceremonial events.
He is yet to watch Everton, though members of his family and other senior figures within TFG have done so. The organisation maintains a presence at home games, even without their figurehead.
Speaking at the end of a week in which Everton sold one of their best players, Iliman Ndiaye, and missed out on forward Folarin Balogun due to late complications in his proposed move from Monaco, Moyes said he had not had direct contact with Friedkin since he was appointed in January 2025, just one month after TFG acquired the club.
Explaining his relationship with the group, he said: “My real contact is Angus [Kinnear, Everton CEO]. Angus is the one who I would go to see. Rishi [Majithia, TFG representative] is the next one and then the head of the Friedkin family in America. I don’t really get any direct conversations with them, but I do through Rishi, he is the one I would speak to.”
That relationship has fallen under scrutiny after the events of the final days of the transfer window, when Moyes cut a solemn figure after the draw at Bournemouth when faced with the potential loss of Ndiaye and Armstrong and with the club struggling to find reinforcements.
In the end, the marquee return of Jack Grealish on loan from Manchester City was secured, along with the signing of Ainsley Maitland-Niles – ending the long hunt for a right-back. The sale of Ndiaye, along with Beto, Nathan Patterson, Tim Iroegbunam and the loan departure of Adam Aznou left Moyes with just 18 outfield senior players, a smaller group than last year after a summer in which Kinnear had said the intent was to add depth to the squad.
Moyes, speaking for the first time since the window closed, refrained from being critical of anyone around him and sought instead to stress the belief he has in the players at his disposal.
On the window, he said: “It was a difficult transfer window generally. I know how it culminated in the end but it was a difficult window all the way through for us. The last couple of days were difficult because we were pushing hard, we had made bids for several players on bank holiday Monday and it would be hard to believe the outcome got to where it was. Lots of things just didn’t fall in line but we probably shouldn’t have been as late as that, we should probably have tried to get the work done a lot earlier than that.”
Kinnear had told the BBC on the eve of the new season the ambition for the season was for Everton to challenge for Europe and the cup competitions.
Moyes said there had been no conversations about re-drafting those targets in light of how Tuesday ended.
Asked whether he believed his job had been made harder by the events of this week, he said: “Look, I think the Everton job is always a hard job and it’s a club that is used to having some difficult times. I can understand how difficult it must have been for Dychey [former manager, Sean Dyche] and many of the managers in front of him, through different periods.
“It is going to be difficult. We don’t have a huge squad of players, it is not a number we would ideally want, but sometimes you need to do something special in football and we will attempt to do something special. I’ve never wanted a huge squad, I’ve always preferred it when the squad is tighter, but maybe not as tight as this.”
Despite the challenges presented to him, Moyes said he wanted to persevere because of his love for the club and the desire to help it progress. He also stressed the strength the club’s supporters provided and praised their role in preventing the sale of Harrison Armstrong to Nottingham Forest. The away end at Bournemouth made clear their outrage as they united to promise a “riot” if the teenager was sold.
On why he wants to continue with the club, Moyes said: “Everton’s different, I wouldn’t have come back for anybody but Everton. I think the club here has had enough days where the people find a way of recovering. People saw the face of Evertonians last week and it can be really powerful. I would expect them to be really powerful now. But powerful for the team, powerful for the players. What we’re going to need from them is extra because we’re short. So we need them. If they’re not with us, then it’s terrible. And they are with us, I believe they are with us.”
And he insisted that, while he believed the transfer window had left Everton shorter on numbers than he would have liked, he would fight to deliver the best season he could.
He said: “My aim is just to be as good as we’ve tried to be in the recent seasons. I think some things will hinder it. There’ll be days we don’t get it right. But I’ll tell you what there won’t be, I’ll do my best not to make any excuses for what’s happened. And the players are fully aware of that. There are no excuses from the players on what we’ve got, what we need, and there’s two or three players who probably get mentioned quite a lot – they are going to have to come with the fore, they’re all going to have to be the ones who see if they can really deal with this football club.
“And for me personally, it’s a great job, I love Everton and always have done. It’s actually invigorated me over the last year, getting back at it again because I was probably going to say I wasn’t going to do it again, or I might have taken an international job or I might have done something else. I actually think we’ve had a good year and a half together, I really do. I think if you looked over the year and a half you’d have to say there’d been a lot more positives and negatives. So now, there’s a little bit of a bump in the road. I need to try and get over the bump quickly and start looking how I can make it go smoothly.”
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