Everton's Winger Crisis: Changes Ahead for Moyes
Everton’s flanks are being ripped up and rewritten.
David Moyes spent most of last season trusting a simple formula: Dwight McNeil off the right, Iliman Ndiaye off the left. Reliable, hard-working, predictable in the best way. That pairing might be gone before a ball is kicked this time.
McNeil is on the brink of finally getting the Selhurst Park move that slipped through his fingers in February, while Al Hilal are circling Ndiaye. The wide men who carried Moyes through long stretches of last season could both be out of the door – and Everton’s opening-day wings might be unrecognisable.
A winger who thought he’d already left
McNeil’s situation has hung over Everton for months.
Back in February, Crystal Palace agreed a loan-to-buy deal that would have turned into a £20m permanent transfer this summer. McNeil passed his medical. Bags packed. Goodbyes said. Then the deal collapsed in the most modern of ways: paperwork not completed in time.
The human cost of that failure spilled out publicly. His partner, Megan Sharpley, took to Instagram to vent her anger, highlighting the strain of a player being taken to the brink of a life-changing move and then dropped at the last second.
"To have something promised to you, to have been dragged along on an emotional rollercoaster and to be toyed with until the final minute," she wrote, "for that to be torn away from you at the last second with absolutely no explanation has hurt more than I can say."
This was not the usual polite silence around a collapsed transfer. It was raw. It underlined how brutal the game can be, even for players on big wages. Now the deal is back on the table, this time with Brennan Johnson involved in a swap. The emotional ride might finally be ending.
Ndiaye interest leaves both wings exposed
On the opposite flank, Ndiaye’s future is also uncertain. Al Hilal have expressed interest, and when a Saudi Pro League heavyweight comes calling, it changes the landscape quickly.
Moyes, who had built a structure with McNeil and Ndiaye as his default wide pairing, is staring at the possibility of losing both in the same window. For a manager who values continuity and discipline, that is a serious reset.
Grealish: the big unknown
One solution already feels familiar.
Jack Grealish arrived on loan from Manchester City last season and, for a time, lit up Everton’s left. Across 22 games he brought control, guile and a touch of class, especially in the first half of the campaign. Then came the foot injury in January, and his season stopped dead.
A return would make immediate sense on footballing grounds. He knows the system, the club know what they’re getting, and he had already forced his way ahead of others in the pecking order. But as it stands, a second spell remains uncertain. Everton cannot plan their entire wide strategy around a possibility.
Dibling: £40m and still waiting
Behind those headline names lies a very expensive question.
Tyler Dibling cost £40m from Southampton last summer, a fee that usually screams “starter”. Instead, his first season at Goodison drifted by. Just four Premier League starts, long spells on the fringes, and then Grealish’s arrival pushed him even further down the list.
It was a transitional year in the harshest sense: lots of waiting, not much football. Now, with both starting wingers potentially leaving, Dibling suddenly moves from afterthought to live option. This is the opening his price tag demands he takes.
George: the manager’s favourite in waiting?
Tyrique George offers a different kind of hope.
Signed permanently from Chelsea for £24m after a successful loan on Merseyside, he is not yet a household name. But he has already made an impression where it matters most: in the manager’s office.
George made 11 appearances last season, starting only once, but his attitude and work-rate struck Moyes, who publicly called him an "excellent boy with an excellent work-rate" at the end of his initial four-month spell. That kind of endorsement sticks. When a manager is forced into change, he often turns to the players he trusts to run, press and sacrifice.
If Moyes wants energy and discipline out wide while the squad reshapes, George could easily find himself starting more often than expected.
Rohl and the patchwork options
Merlin Rohl is another piece of this puzzle. Not a specialist winger, but someone who has filled in out wide when needed. In a squad facing upheaval, those adaptable players suddenly become very useful.
If McNeil and Ndiaye leave, Moyes could open the season with a makeshift mix: Dibling on one side, George on the other, Rohl rotating in, and the club still working the market. It would be a very different look to last year’s settled pair.
A new look Everton, ready or not
This is not a gentle evolution of Everton’s attack. It is a potential tear-down of both flanks in one summer.
The safe, familiar wide pairing that carried Moyes through last season is close to being dismantled. In its place: a blend of expensive but unproven talent, a manager’s favourite with limited starts, a versatile squad player, and the lingering possibility of Jack Grealish returning to reclaim his spot.
For Moyes, the question is no longer just who plays wide on opening day. It is whether this enforced reset can turn into an opportunity to refresh and modernise Everton’s attack – or whether losing both pillars of last season’s system leaves him scrambling as the new campaign begins.
