David Moyes lifts the lid on his big Everton ambition, true transfer thoughts and working with TFG

David Moyes lifts the lid on his big Everton ambition, true transfer thoughts and working with TFG

EXCLUSIVE: David Moyes sits down at his team's hotel in the USA with ECHO Everton reporter Chris Beesley to discuss all the big issues for the Blues ahead of a pivotal season in the club's history in a two-part special

David Moyes granted an exclusive sit down interview to ECHO Everton reporter Chris Beesley at the team's hotel in the USA

David Moyes continues to aim high with Everton and for all his current transfer frustrations, he loves being back at the Blues and is determined to have them once more competing with the best teams in the land.

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Given the Scot’s string of public laments throughout Everton’s Premier League Summer Series trip regarding his frustrations that the club have not brought in as many new signings as he would have expected by this stage, as we enter the final month of the summer transfer window, you might have been forgiven that thinking he’s a man who is not enjoying his role.

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However, those disappointments are because the man who back in 2002 dubbed the Blues ‘The People’s Club,’ wants to raise the bar of expectations and demands the best for the supporters who have backed him for so long.

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With PSR restrictions and the wait for a takeover to be completed having forced Everton to target low hanging fruit in the transfer market out of necessity for several years, now, for the first moment in a long time, backed by the increased financial muscle of The Friedkin Group, Moyes and his recruitment team have drawn up an ambitious list of targets which feature players who they believe can make a tangible difference, rather than just make up the numbers to pad out the squad.

While the Blues boss obviously isn’t going to disclose his wish list publicly, such loftier talents typically take longer to get through the door.

Having covered Everton throughout the entirety of their USA trip, the ECHO was fortunate enough to be granted a sit-down interview with Moyes in the team’s hotel and when it came to transfers, he said: “Look, it’s always been this way, especially in the summer window. The January one is quite short and it’s over and done quite quickly but I think the summer one has always been a situation like that.

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“You’re backwards and forwards with players, things can change with injury or just with how it is. We’ve got to try and start to rebuild again.

“We’ve just left Goodison and we have to start the new story of how we build ourselves up at the new stadium, how we can become a side that is more competitive against the big teams again. When I left, I felt as though we were competitive against most of the top sides at that time and I think we’ve got to try and attempt to get to that.

“I don’t think that can be done immediately. Well, it certainly can’t be done immediately, that’s for sure.

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“James Smith is joining us very shortly, who has been head of recruitment at Manchester City, so we’re hoping that he comes back more experienced and with more knowledge, which will help us going forward.”

Everton have now moved to Atlanta, the city where Dr Martin Luther King was born and while Moyes won’t go as far as the famous civil rights leader in telling Blues supporters: “I have a dream,” the manager who steered the club to nine top-eight finishes during his first spell in charge, including a best-ever Premier League position of fourth in 2004/05, is determined to reach for the stars.

The Glaswegian was the competition’s youngest manager at 38 when he first arrived at Goodison Park in 2002 but now, at 62, he is the division’s elder statesman.

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Asked if he feels he is a better manager now than when he left Everton in 2013, he said: “I do. I don’t feel old.

“These six months coming back and managing Everton has given me a huge boost because the players have been so good and the crowd have been so good, they’ve really accepted me coming back.

“I also think I’ve come back a bit more experienced with what I’ve seen and what I’ve done. I wouldn’t want to use the word dream, but I’ve got an ambition to see if I can get Everton back towards European football.

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“That’s what I think I have to make my first target. There are nine teams from the Premier League in Europe next season and somehow, we have to give ourselves some goals.

“I could be shooting way above the level, but I feel like I have to shoot high because I’ll not be around doing this for another 10 years and I don’t expect to be. I just want to be able to leave Everton in a good place, whenever that time comes.”

Guiding previous employers West Ham United to victory in the 2023 UEFA Europa Conference League – the east London club’s first major trophy in 43 years – has whetted Moyes’ appetite for more continental competition.

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He said: “It was so good. I’m not saying this in any boastful way because I’ve been knocked out of competitions as well and we had that season at Everton when we started so well in Europe and lost to Fiorentina on penalties.

“I took Manchester United to the quarter-finals of the Champions League, and I’ve taken West Ham to a quarters, a semis, and a final in three European competitions. So, I feel I can get in amongst it and I’ve got a little bit of history that hopefully might help us.

“Obviously, at the moment, we’re off it and there’s no point in talking about it at the moment when we’re only just away from four or five years of battling at the bottom end of the table.”

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This is the seventh time that Moyes has taken Everton to the USA for a summer trip but while he’s gone on record as stating that he believes the squad has been ill-prepared for the tournament in terms of their available numbers, given the nature of the competition, he’s relieved just to be taking part.

He said: “The difference this time is that we’ve actually been invited to a tournament and because we’re part of the Premier League Summer Series, that’s why we’re here. Let’s be fair, there were parts of last season where you wouldn’t have said we’d have been out here in this competition.

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“I think we had always enjoyed the States in the early years because we had the chance to play a few of the MLS teams, we played the All-Star team once. It felt it was a pretty good trip for us on the times we came out before.”

Moyes has gone on record before as saying he came close to making a return to Everton on some two or three occasions during the ownership of Farhad Moshiri who, in contrast to the stability brought by the former Preston North End boss’ 11-year tenure first time around, churned through eight managers in as many years, so how does he get on with The Friedkin Group, who are based in Houston, Texas?

He said: “I’ve found them quite easy to deal with. Maybe, they could have had some doubts as well, possibly about maybe bringing me back as well?

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“I don’t think there’s any doubt that I can help the Friedkins as well. I’m not a specialist in Everton, I’m not that, but I think I’ve got a pretty good idea about what’s required, how the club is run and how it works.

“They’re there for me and they’re supportive in terms of that they want us to go out and build a new team really.”

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