Everton's owners the Friedkin Group are rarely seen and barely heard – so when they announced via chief executive Angus Kinnear that they regarded missing out on European football last season as "failure" it came as a surprise. Everton were in one of the nine European places on offer to English clubs when Merlin Rohl gave them the lead against Sunderland in their penultimate game of last season at home to Sunderland. Instead, in keeping with a collapse that saw them fail to win any of their last seven league games, Everton lost 3-1 to the Europe-bound Black Cats, before a final-day defeat at Tottenham Hotspur left them in 13th place.
In an interview with BBC Radio Merseyside, Kinnear said: "They viewed it as a failure because it was a failure. "The Friedkins are winners. They want to win and we didn't win anything." Moyes' response when this was put him was intriguing – and begs the question whether the 63-year-old Scot is on the same page as Everton's American powerbrokers - who also own Italian club Roma - when it comes to ambition.
He said: "I'm surprised they were disappointed because there was never, ever any time anyone said to me 'David, you have to make Europe or you have to be in and around the top end'. "I think everybody wanted to make sure we moved into the new stadium safe and with not having too difficult a season and we certainly did that last year." Kinnear also said: "We have definitely had discussions with the ownership and David about how we use the Carabao Cup and FA Cup to give the fans something to really cheer and get behind." Former Everton and England midfield man Leon Osman told BBC Sport: "I was a bit surprised at the statement and at the timing because, as Moyes said, I don't think anyone was saying for much of last season that not getting into Europe was a failure. "I do think when you get on the cusp of something and it slips away, it can feel like you've failed, but I would call it a disappointment rather than a failure because so often in the last five years, before David Moyes took over, Everton have been trying to keep their heads above water by staying in the Premier League." Moyes bristled, questioning whether journalists were "dead stupid" when asked about the importance of cup competitions, and spirits will have been lifted by the convincing second-round Carabao Cup win at Preston North End.
Kinnear said in the same interview that Everton's squad was "in a good place" – although added there was work to do. Moyes sounded a markedly more cautious note, warning fans not to get carried away with an opening Premier League win against Crystal Palace and victory at Deepdale. It is clear Moyes wants TFG to deliver more backing before the transfer window closes to improve, and bolster, a squad which ran out of steam so badly last season.
He said: "For us to be a side which is competitive, I still think we have got a lot of work to do. Hopefully we are able to try and do some of it. Our squad is not big enough and we need to get more quality in some areas if we can do.
"I'm not sure we will, but it's not for me and the want of trying, that's for sure." The messages were certainly mixed, adding to a summer of mixed fortunes in the transfer market, that even led to Prime Minister and fanatical Evertonian Andy Burnham to comment on one of the hot topics when he said: "There is one thing I would just ask, sign a right-back." This is what makes the final few days of the transfer window so vital for Moyes, who is in the final year of his contract, and Everton. And it will not simply be about incomings. Moyes will be desperate to hang on to Iliman Ndiaye, the inspirational forward who has been central to his plans.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
