David Moyes: Everton aren’t ready for next season

David Moyes slammed Everton’s attacking play and individual mistakes and warned his side are “not ready” to start the Premier League season.

Everton have yet to win any of their four pre-season games and slumped to a third straight defeat when they lost 2-1 to West Ham at Soldier Field in Chicago on Wednesday in their second game of the Premier League Summer Series.

A blunder from new goalkeeper signing Mark Travers gifted Lucas Paqueta an equaliser before a defensive mix-up paved the way for Niclas Fullkrug to score West Ham’s winner. 

Everton were beaten 3-0 by Bournemouth last Sunday having lost to Blackburn and drawn with Accrington Stanley before flying to the US.

“We’re not ready to perform well enough in this tournament. We’re not ready to start the Premier League season,” said Moyes, whose side face Manchester United in Atlanta on Sunday.

“I’m not overly concerned [by the results] because I don’t have the players which I need and what I want. And obviously, we’re up against it right from the start. We knew before we came [to the US] we were going to be really up against it. So, it was never going to be us coming here and winning [games].

“I think our attacking play at the moment has been really poor. I think we’ve not created enough chances anywhere.

“I think the way we’re playing in that area of the pitch at the moment has been really below par. But we’ve made individual mistakes which has shown us up for that as well.

“It stood out tonight, some goalkeeping mistakes. At the weekend we made a couple of mistakes against Bournemouth.”

Travers was signed from Bournemouth for £4 million this summer to provide competition for Jordan Pickford but had a game to forget. “That’s a very difficult question isn’t it? Because you know the answer. He didn’t perform well tonight. He knows that. We know that,” Moyes said. 

‘I knew we were going to be incredibly short’

Moyes has admitted Everton are running out of time to strengthen their squad and getting increasingly desperate. The Everton manager has made four signings but wants another six players and would have faced a big enough challenge to bed in a revamped squad if he had all pre-season to work with them. 

But Moyes said the prospect of trying to integrate large numbers of new players during the season is “really difficult”. Injuries to key players, including Jarrad Branthwaite, have not helped either. 

“It’s why you always attempt to get your players in early if you can because you’d rather have that,” he said. “There’s a bigger turnover of players now at clubs. They used to say, ‘Hey, let’s sign maybe three or maybe four players tops every season.’

“But because of the way the bigger squads and maybe boys who not getting a game, they want to go, you find that there’s a bigger revolving door of players. So a lot of clubs will be signing quite big numbers, which they are now, more than what was done in the past if you look at it.

“We wanted to have the players in a lot sooner, especially coming here [to the US], I knew we were going to be incredibly short.”

On the upside, Moyes was relieved to welcome back James Tarkowski against West Ham after more than three months out. 

“That was one of the positives, getting Tarky back for 20 minutes,” he said. “He’s been out for the best part of 12 or 14 weeks now so getting Tarky back is really important. A big strength of the team has probably been Tarky and Jarrad [Branthwaite] plus the goalkeeper [Jordan Pickford].”