Everton endured a disastrous summer transfer window, capped by the collapse of a £40million deadline-day move for Monaco striker Folarin Balogun, leaving David Moyes facing a major selection headache.
Moyes has now revealed that he has never spoken directly to Dan Friedkin, the chief executive of Everton’s owners, the Friedkin Group, following the chaotic conclusion to the transfer window.
The Toffees have been left with a severely depleted squad after failing to bring in a striker on deadline day. Everton sold Beto to Fiorentina but were unable to secure a replacement after Balogun rejected the move. Late attempts to sign Manchester United’s Joshua Zirkzee and Aston Villa’s Tammy Abraham also proved unsuccessful, leaving Thierno Barry as the club’s only senior centre-forward.
There was some positive news for Everton, with Jack Grealish returning on loan from Manchester City. However, the £65million sale of Iliman Ndiaye to City further reduced Moyes’ options.
The chaotic final hours of the window, which saw Balogun reverse his decision to join Everton after arriving at the club’s training ground, have intensified scrutiny around the club. Moyes’ revelation that he has no direct communication with Friedkin is likely to add further fuel to those concerns.
“My real contact is Angus [Kinnear, Everton CEO]. Angus is the one who I would go to see,” Moyes said ahead of Sunday’s game against Manchester United. “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.”
Speaking at a press conference, as reported by the Liverpool Echo, Moyes took a diplomatic approach when reflecting on the disastrous transfer window. He insisted the breakdown of the £40m deal for Balogun “wasn’t anyone’s fault”.
“It was a difficult transfer window generally,” he added. “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.”
When asked whether the transfer window had made his job more difficult, Moyes acknowledged the challenges that come with managing Everton.
“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 reduced squad numbers, Moyes remains determined to press ahead. The experienced manager insisted he will not use the transfer situation as an excuse for any future struggles.
“My aim is just to be as good as we’ve tried to be in the recent seasons,” he said. “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.”