Everton's Season Review: A Struggle for Stability and Progress
For much of last season, Everton were staring at the sky, not the trapdoor.
Jack Grealish arrived on loan and lit the place up. Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall kept deciding tight games almost by force of will. Thierno Barry and Beto, who had looked lost early on, began to bully centre-backs and find the net.
On 21 March, a 3-0 dismantling of Chelsea at Hill Dickinson Stadium pushed Everton up to eighth, three points off the Champions League places with seven games to go. Europe did not just feel possible. It felt close.
Then the season fell apart.
Everton did not win another league game. It was their longest winless run since David Moyes returned for his second spell in 2025, and it dragged them from dreamers to also-rans. A 2-2 draw at Brentford on 11 April, when they twice let a lead slip, became the hinge on which the whole campaign turned. From that point, their form over the remainder of the season ranked them in the division’s bottom three.
Only Burnley and Wolves joined them in failing to win a single match in that stretch. One club went down. One flirted with crisis. Everton somehow finished 13th and yet walked off in May feeling like a team that had wasted something.
A familiar finish, a very different mood
The numbers say stability. The mood says something else entirely.
Everton have finished 13th in both seasons since Moyes came back. The first time felt like a rescue job. When he rejoined 18 months ago, they were a point above the relegation zone, still reeling from financial breaches, points deductions and years of firefighting. They ended that campaign 23 points clear of trouble. That felt like a step forward.
Last season was meant to be the next one.
The Friedkin Group backed Moyes heavily. Everton spent £97m before 2025-26, a club-record net outlay in a single summer. The return? Thirteenth again, with only one extra point to show for it.
The mood around the final home game underlined the disconnect. Before facing promoted Sunderland, still with a shot at Europe, CEO Angus Kinnear wrote in his programme notes that he was “happily dissatisfied” with the campaign. It was a strange phrase at a strange time. Ninety minutes and a 3-1 defeat later, it sounded worse.
Sunderland rode that win to seventh place and European football for the first time in 53 years. Everton trudged away with the same league position as the year before, only this time with the sour taste of a missed opportunity.
Former midfielder Leon Osman, though, sees the bigger picture.
“When David Moyes first came in, we flew out the blocks and had a great start,” he said. “That continued for well over a year before the first sort of low period, which was the end of last season. I still feel that we made progress last season, which is what we wanted, along with stability.”
Progress, then, but with a ceiling that suddenly looks uncomfortably low.
Moyes, money and a misfiring new home
Moyes, now 63, has been blunt about the scale of the challenge. Everton rank only 15th among current Premier League clubs for net spend over the past five years. They have been outgunned financially by the sides they are trying to catch.
Yet the table offers awkward counter-examples. Bournemouth spent less than anyone last summer, actually banking a profit of £81m on transfers, and finished sixth. Brighton made £41m in the market and still came in eighth. Recruitment models, not just chequebooks, are starting to decide who climbs and who stalls.
Everton thought they had changed their own story with a move to the gleaming Hill Dickinson Stadium. New home, new era, new energy. Instead, the numbers at their new ground were historically flat. Their points-per-game tally of 1.2 at home was the worst by any side starting life in a new stadium in Premier League history.
Away from home, they ranked in the top seven. At Hill Dickinson, the place never quite became a fortress.
Osman believes context matters. Bournemouth and Brighton, he argues, are “further along in their development” than an Everton side still adjusting to a new stadium and still shaking off years of turbulence. He also points to the moment the season turned: Grealish’s injury in January.
With Grealish, Everton won 45% of their league games and averaged 1.6 points per match. Without him, the win rate collapsed to 22%, the points return to one per game. Take out your most influential player and the whole system shuddered.
“David Moyes is an intense manager and by the end of the season, a small squad couldn't quite last,” Osman said. “Changes take time. No one is thinking about relegation which shows you what Moyes has done. He's got 12 months remaining and I'd expect him to see that out.”
One year left on the contract. One more shot to show this is a platform, not a plateau.
Grealish questions, Ndiaye doubts
If Bournemouth and Brighton have become benchmarks for smart recruitment, Everton are still trying to work out what they want to be.
Under Farhad Moshiri, they burned through expensive signings. Eight players who cost at least £20m eventually walked away for nothing. That era left scars, and it left a club wary of big gambles.
The Friedkin Group tried to reset last summer, bringing in nine players with a clear tilt towards youth. Some of that business has worked. Some has not.
Grealish and Dewsbury-Hall delivered. Tyler Dibling, a £35m signing from Southampton, did not yet. The 20-year-old winger started only six matches. Adam Aznou, the young left-back from Bayern Munich, is still waiting for his Premier League debut.
Barry, 23, won more aerial duels than any other player in his first top-flight season, a sign of his physical presence. The problem came in front of goal, where his finishing veered from ruthless to ragged. Merlin Rohl, 24, barely featured until May, then impressed across four late starts that hinted at a player belatedly finding his feet.
The next phase of the rebuild may hinge on two names: Grealish and Iliman Ndiaye.
BBC Radio Merseyside’s Giulia Bould reports that Grealish is set to return on loan towards the end of the window as he recovers from a stress fracture in his foot. His wages, though, are expected to stay at around £200,000 per week – a heavy commitment for a club still repairing its finances.
“I'd welcome Grealish back but only at a price that suits Everton,” Osman said.
Ndiaye, meanwhile, has been linked with a move to Saudi Arabia. That prospect worries him more.
“Ndiaye, I'd hate to lose him. There may come a point that the price is right and Everton can reinvest in two or three players but I think they should do everything they can to keep him.”
Lose elite quality without a clear plan to replace it, and the squad shrinks again. That is a risk Everton cannot afford.
Youth, trust and a thin squad
The numbers underlined just how thin Moyes’ options were last season. He used only 22 players in the league, fewer than any other manager. His 128 substitutions were at least six fewer than any rival. In a campaign that demanded rotation, he largely stuck with a core group and pushed them to the limit.
At the same time, the club kept investing in youth.
Central midfielder Hayden Hackney, 24, arrived from Middlesbrough for £16.5m in July. Tyrique George, 20, joined permanently from Chelsea for £18m after a loan spell in the second half of last season. Alistair Johnston of Celtic has emerged as a leading target to finally solve the long-running issue at right-back. Arsenal’s 32-year-old Christian Norgaard is reportedly close to signing, a nod to the experience lost with recent departures.
The average age of signings in Moyes’ second spell is under 24. Three of them are 20 or younger. On paper, that looks like a club building for the long term.
On the pitch, the youth pathway still feels clogged. Players aged 21 or under contributed just 1,088 minutes in the league last season, ranking Everton 17th in the division for exposure given to young talent.
Now, the safety net has gone. Seamus Coleman and Idrissa Gueye, between them owners of more than 600 Premier League appearances, have left. James Garner, a key figure in midfield, will miss the start of the season after groin surgery.
Moyes could soon be relying on the very youngsters he has been reluctant to trust.
“They need to show they're capable and deserve to play,” Osman said. “I'm hoping that a year in, understanding the demands that are required, players like Dibling and George will make that progression and then suddenly our squad looks more trustworthy.”
The ingredients are there: a manager with a track record of building teams, a new stadium waiting to become a genuine home, a core of proven Premier League players and a cluster of young signings desperate for minutes.
The question now is whether Everton can turn those pieces into something coherent – or whether another season of “happily dissatisfied” will be as good as it gets.
