Time and owners not on Moyes’ side as he tries to end Everton trophy drought

The Friedkin Group want to sell and squad investment has dried up but Carabao Cup is still an opportunity for silverware

A European challenge plus a concerted effort to end a trophy drought that will soon stretch into a 32nd year were Everton’s stated aims for this season, although that was before the club’s owners turned the taps off in the transfer market and announced they were looking to sell up. An abrupt change of direction and ambition from The Friedkin Group (TFG) has not altered the demands on David Moyes, however. It is as you were for the Everton manager, regardless of the tools at his disposal.

Newcastle’s visit to Hill Dickinson Stadium in the Carabao Cup fourth round on Thursday – when they will be backed by 7,732 fans after Everton allocated their opponents 15% of the ground – is timely on several counts. It is, first and foremost, an opportunity for Moyes’s team to advance in a competition that Everton have never won and edge closer to realising one stated aim for the campaign. It is also a chance to restore positivity after consecutive defeats against Chelsea and Arsenal, Everton’s only losses of the season.

This will be the first of two games in a row between the sides, with Everton going to St James’ Park in the league on Monday. Newcastle serve as a potent reminder of the League Cup’s power to lift a club out of trophy torment, in their case 56 years, with victory in the 2025 final.

Newcastle, though, had Alexander Isak leading the line at Wembley in 2025. Everton have Thierno Barry and no alternative striker as a result of the calamitous end to the summer transfer window when TFG first signalled the change in the club’s financial landscape by accepting a £35m bid from Nottingham Forest for Harrison Armstrong. The young midfielder’s form and value have continued to improve in the following weeks, just as the Evertonians who protested against his sale during the draw at Bournemouth knew they would.

Barry started his second season in English football encouragingly, with four goals in the first two games. But as the misses have racked up from the 24-year-old French forward – he leads the way in the Premier League this season with 12 big chances missed – so Everton have looked disheartened at times and their performances have dipped.

It is not all on Barry, of course. Brennan Johnson and Jack Grealish need to contribute much more from out wide than they have this season. Moyes’s sparing use of Hayden Hackney, Tyrique George and Tyler Dibling has also invited criticism that his resources, while extremely limited, are not being maximised. Jordan Pickford’s recent form has been an added, uncharacteristic cause for concern.

“We need to start picking up results,” James Tarkowski, the club captain, said. “Even though we won against Ipswich, it feels, not like a slump, but it feels like we need to work our way out of this. It’s a big game on Thursday in the cup.”

Moyes gave a fine speech when receiving a tribute award from the Football Writers’ Association North in Manchester on Sunday night. In a wide-ranging analysis of a managerial career spanning more than 1,200 games, he spoke of the importance of working for owners with resolve and foresight, his desire for more British coaches to work abroad and his envy at the trophy collections of other long-serving peers such as Sir Alex Ferguson, Arsène Wenger and José Mourinho.

The unadulterated joy that he and West Ham got from winning the Europa Conference League in 2023 – ending that club’s 43-year wait for a major trophy – is a feeling that Moyes longs to experience again with Everton. But time and TFG are not on his side.

The 63‑year‑old Scot’s contract expires at the end of this season and talks over an extension have been kicked repeatedly down the road. Moyes has restored stability on the pitch while TFG has stabilised Everton’s finances off it, but is a manager’s contract and long-term planning on the owner’s agenda now it is trying to sell the club in a difficult market?

Moyes has quickly – though not as quickly as fans would like – constructed a team that could challenge for Europe with quality additions in attack, at right-back, and with a lot of luck with injuries. Everton made a £25m profit in the last transfer window and are the lowest net spenders in the Premier League over the past five years. Yet it seems highly unlikely that a wantaway owner would invest in the squad as required in January.

“Look, it’s never going to be easy,” Moyes said last month when dissecting Everton’s damaging end to the transfer window. “You know what happens in these situations, there’s only one person who tends to get called out at the end of it. You know what I mean?” That may be true but there is realism regarding Everton’s latest predicament, along with a recognition of how important a win over Newcastle could be.