David Moyes has admitted that he has never spoken to the Everton owner Dan Friedkin in the 20 months since he bought the club, as the veteran manager prepares to pick up the pieces of a shambolic transfer window.
Friedkin, the 61-year-old American, purchased Everton in
December 2024 but claims emerged this week that they are looking for new
investment after a transfer window that ended with a chaotic deadline day on
Tuesday, in which they sold fans’ favourite Iliman Ndiaye to
Manchester City for £65million and the USA international Folarin Balogun
pulled out of a late move from Monaco, to leave Moyes with only 18
outfield players in his senior squad.
With Moyes in the final year of his contract, the manager
insists the transfer debacle will have no bearing on his future, although he
did make the shock admission that he had never spoken to his American employer,
with his contact coming via the owner’s representative, Rishi Majithia, and the
club’s chief executive, Angus Kinnear.
When asked if he had ever spoken to or met the owner, Moyes
said: “No. My real contact is Angus. Angus is the one who I would go to see.
Rishi is the next one and then the head of the Friedkin family in America. I
don’t really get any direct conversations with them, but I do through Rishi, he
is the one I would speak to.”
“I’ve not had a direct conversation with anyone since
Tuesday night. We’ve had quick words in and around the building but I don’t
think we are setting any targets at the moment. I don’t think that’s for me.”
“Last season I tried to set the target of being in Europe
and I used it a lot and we just missed it and it seemed to come back and haunt
me, so I might not say so much this year and see how things go.”
However, Moyes insisted that the uncertainty around the
ownership, and the lack of transfer activity, would have no bearing on his
talks about a contract extension, which the club always intended to intensify
after the window closed.
“We’ve had talks and we’re having talks, so I think from
that point of view, we’re fine,” Moyes, who returned for a second spell in
charge in January 2025 after previously leading the club from 2002-13, said.
“I don’t want to take Everton in the wrong direction. I only
want to come back here if I can help and make the team better. And I think for
a year and a half we’ve done that. So I have to see if I can do it. I have to
believe I can do it again. I want the players to believe that as well, more
than anybody.
“It was a difficult transfer window generally. I know how it
culminated in the end but it was a difficult window all the way through for us.
The last couple of days were difficult because we were pushing hard, we had
made bids for several players on Bank Holiday Monday and it would be hard to
believe the outcome got to where it was.
Lots of things just didn’t fall in line but we probably shouldn’t have
been as late as that, we should probably have tried to get the work done a lot
earlier than that.”
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