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-sm.jpg>) Everton’s pre-season preparations continued with a win at Hamburg this weekend, the fourth fixture of a summer schedule that will take in the trip to Germany, a return to Scotland, and a home clash with Lille before the season opener. Pre-season preparations are gruelling as teams put in the hard yards to be ready for opening weekend in August. David Moyes and his men have already undergone a training camp in Scotland, with the fixtures now coming thick and fast as the Toffees sharpen up across the summer. In our latest Once a Blue conversation, Yakubu Ayegbeni opened up on the demands of pre-season under Moyes. The Yak admitted he was no fan of the fitness-focused regime, and insisted the Scot’s summer workloads were the hardest of his career. “With Moysey, it’s very, very demanding. I was lucky, normally in the summer we’d have games with the national team so I’d miss the first two weeks! Moysey’s pre-season was very, very hard work. We’d travel to Scotland, and on that Scotland trip I’d never go. I was there for four years and never went to that place! “As a player you have to do pre-season, it’s really, really tough. We used to train three times a day for one week. We’d go for a run in the forest for about 45 minutes at about 7:30, then you’d go for football. Then running, 100m, 200m, 400m… which is really, really tough! For me, when it’s metres I’m fine. 200m is so-so, but 400m is really hard. I used to be at the back! “I enjoy football, not running around! 50m and 100m, ok, but when it comes to 200m and 400m… I’m smiling now, but the guys who know me were like ‘Come on, Yak!’ Moysey used to say to me, just keep going, it doesn’t matter if you finish last, but you have to do it. “When you’ve trained with Moyes, you can play anywhere, do any training in the world. Military training, you can do it, because his training is really intense. “Every player needs pre-season. It keeps you going for the rest of the season and prevents injuries. You’ve been out of football for weeks; where you haven’t done anything for four weeks, you’ve lost a little bit. It’s normal. Even when you’re injured and out for two weeks, you’re starting again. Normally they give you a programme to do when you’re on holiday, just to keep your body going. “When it comes to a week before pre-season, you have to push a little bit. And if you don’t push before David Moyes pre-season, you’re done! I’m telling you, you’re done.” One player who benefitted from Moyes’ pre-season demands last summer was James Garner. The midfielder covered more distance than any other Premier League player in 2025/26, accumulating 415.46km on route to winning Everton’s Player of the Season award. Modern footballers often showcase themselves keeping in shape over the summer, though Yakubu insists that is no new phenomenon. He said those who switched off completely would feel the consequences upon their return. “There wasn’t too much social media then. Everyone used to do a little bit and do something while you’re on holiday. I think the players now really do more on holiday, to keep their shape. It’s intense now. Back then, your first week back it was just running. Now I think you do a little bit of football and running. “Back then, we used to make a joke that Everton was a running club. We were just running! The crazy part is, even the gaffer would run with us. He was really fit back then; I’m not sure about now… he used to do the same jogging with the players, 20 minutes non-stop with high tempo. You’d run from one post for a minute, then to another post for a minute. Sometimes at the training ground it was like a hill! A lot of memories of running… “A lot used to struggle; it wasn’t just me. Joseph Yobo, he struggled a lot. Victor Anichebe, he tried, but we always struggled a bit. Steven Pienaar was really good, and Leighton Baines. He can run for fun. The goalkeepers as well, Tim Howard, struggled a little bit. Just stick with the goalkeepers!” Read more - Yakubu’s message to Beto and Barry as Everton stall on signings Reader Comments (47) Note: the following content is not moderated or vetted by the site owners at the time of submission. Comments are the responsibility of the poster. Disclaimer () 1 Posted 03/08/2026 at 15:48:20 If we did well, it was jam roly-poly with Bird's Custard for pudding. 2 Posted 03/08/2026 at 15:58:43 That just about sums Moyes up. Run, run, then run some more... 3 Posted 03/08/2026 at 16:53:58 It's different with the ball though and even the fittest start blowing when you first get the ball out, especially if you want them to start following their pass. Imagine doing all that work to be a sub, who gets the last few minutes -- which is nowhere near enough to build up your match fitness -- and then when six or seven of you are suddenly thrown in for a cup game and struggle for fluidity, listening to everyone saying “you are fucking shite”. 4 Posted 03/08/2026 at 17:13:07 Minutes by players aged 21 or under: 1,088 minutes - PL ranking 17th Players used: 22 - PL ranking 20th Subs made: 128 - PL ranking 20th Minutes by subs: 1853 - PL ranking 20th The average age of signings in Moyes's second spell is under 24, including three players aged 20 or younger. The club signed young players. But Moyes never gave young players the minutes as subs, never mind starts. As a result, the older squad players gassed out, and we ended up getting 3 points from our last 7 games. That's relegation form. 5 Posted 03/08/2026 at 17:17:13 As one of our Managers used to say, "Minimum requirement is maximum effort", and then to understand the tactics. I suppose you have to justify the wages somehow. 6 Posted 03/08/2026 at 17:29:21 Not that we didn't know, but that's confirmation Moyes is not the manager to develop young players. If that is the route the owner is taking to form a squad, it's wasted money to employ Moyes to oversee it. 7 Posted 03/08/2026 at 17:44:03 We now ask: 'Who's running the club?' -- no joke! 8 Posted 03/08/2026 at 17:59:56 This makes very grim reading. I wonder what Moyes's record is like when it comes to winning matches after going behind? If it's not a good one (which I suspect it isn't), then if you equate this with his lack of substitutions, one could deduce that this is a factor of really poor management. I will admit -- if we are ahead in a game -- he is a king at shutting up shop. Doesn't matter if we are 1 minute into a game or 89. His teams are drilled to excel under such circumstances. The only problem he has is that, in the 1-minute scenario, it can spell an eventual disaster. He also can't change up. For example, once ahead in a game we're not expected to win, if they equalise, he cannot go again for the win. He starts to protect the draw. And then the inevitable happens. What you end up with is an FA Cup Final where the team go out with a whimper. Where is your keeper going up for corners? Where are your corners in fact? Where is any kind of intent? He's a manager who believes you have one chance to win a football match against equivalent or better opposition. It's a loser's mindset. He has it and he infects our football club with it. 9 Posted 03/08/2026 at 19:28:10 I do remember when Moyes left and Martinez concentrated more on ball work, do you remember what happened? Do you forget the number of hamstring problems the team had? If not, look it up, even Martinez's physios resigned. Moyes knows how to get a team fit; I don't know why anyone would be opposed to that? As for not starting young players, give him this season and let's look if a proper pre-season allows them to kick on. We have a younger squad and they are also getting a chance in friendlies. Graham had a run out along with several others recently. Yes, I don't condone the last 7 games of the season, woeful... but perhaps our players were gassed out due to squad size? I am willing to give him this season to get us into Europe and I think it will happen. We're better than last season squad wise and, with the right-back and flanks sorted (and they will be!), add hopefully another striker and we will be fine. 10 Posted 03/08/2026 at 20:05:45 And I forgot about Armstrong. The manager you claim will get us into Europe would rather stick him on the wing instead of George. 11 Posted 03/08/2026 at 20:45:06 I would say that Garner's form fell off a cliff later in the season. But if he wants to be a top player at a top club, then he needs to be playing another 20 games on top of the ones he already did, and at the level of the first 20 he played. Other than that, as Jay says, Armstrong, George, Dibling, Alcaraz, Aznou were all woefully underused in the run-in. Can anybody think of a young player that actually excelled under his tutelage? I can't think of any. Rooney was a left winger, rarely played a full 90 minutes for us until he left. Joined Man Utd and was an automatic starter immediately and one of their most important players. Coleman -- we saw nothing of the player we saw under Martinez whilst Moyes was in charge. A defensive right winger under Moyes and not trusted at right-back. Barkley -- Moyes wouldn't play him. Martinez joins the club and Ross is starting straight away and the star of a brilliant 2013-14 season. Stones -- very young but not a hint of a chance under Moyes. Within days of Martinez as our manager, he's doing a panenka vs Juventus. Mustafi -- no chances offered. Ends up winning the World Cup. Players such as Bidwell, Forshaw, Duffy and Lundstram who've all had solid careers -- they all could've been squad players for Everton for the last decade but Moyes would not give them a sniff of development. 12 Posted 03/08/2026 at 21:21:12 If Moyes had his way, he'd bring back Hibbo to fill the RB position, you know, experience and that, FFS the dinosaur's been found out a long time ago, he'll never change 13 Posted 03/08/2026 at 21:52:16 We were bottom for substitutes used, bottom for minutes given to substitutes and bottom for minutes given to young players. I accept that using some of the young players wouldn't have guaranteed any wins during those woeful last 7 games. But they certainly couldn't have done any worse, could they? If, as it appears, Dinosaur Dave is being forced to accept the signing of younger players, as opposed to his favoured experienced players, then it doesn't bode well for the new season. 14 Posted 03/08/2026 at 22:03:23 15 Posted 03/08/2026 at 23:21:16 This might be one of the silliest, erm, comments I've read anywhere on the subject: '... perhaps our players were gassed out due to squad size?' No, the reason was staring you in the face. But you, of course, glossed over Steve's post (4) because it didn't fit your sick script. Players used: 22 -- PL ranking 20th Subs made: 128 -- PL ranking 20th Minutes by subs: 1853 -- PL ranking 20th Grow up lad: 'Moyes bashers'. Anything critical is always 'bash' and 'hate' right, revealing of a narrow and closed mind? Get on the Tarkowski thread, there's some good jerk-off material on there for those inclined -- from the man himself. 16 Posted 03/08/2026 at 23:27:53 I'm sure you will find experts in fitness who will say that training can be unbalanced or even simply over-done. People point at the number of games Everton played and say our players can't possibly be knackered, but if the manager has overdone the training, then I'm sure that could be a factor. When you root cause something, you are looking for things that are obvious outliers; and so, when we analyse the poor finish to the season, the manager's reluctance to rotate his players more has to be up for some consideration as a potential root cause. 17 Posted 03/08/2026 at 23:32:58 A new low on TW. 18 Posted 03/08/2026 at 23:39:31 19 Posted 03/08/2026 at 00:55:13 'Everybody' was 'astounded' when it came out that Player Manager Dalglish said he did no training between games, just a hard pre-season and ball work with light loosening between games -- shock horror from the "beast them up the Ainsdale sand hills" advocates! Once the season starts, what you don't need is some idiot over-training you between games, making you use all your energy chasing 20-year-olds round the training ground. So said Bobby Charlton who reckoned he could've played on, like Queen Kenny, for 3 or 4 years if he'd been allowed to manage himself. (See correct attitude and self discipline above... tbh, I can't see Grealish doing that!) Anyway, what I do mind is that, when the season starts, we play shite football, all that work and fitness just to spend more time behind the ball rather than using the fitness to get forward quickly... not that there's anything wrong with getting back quickly when you lose the ball. But Moyes seems to have it arse about face: He sees fitness for fitness's sake, not as a key tool in scoring goals and winning games. He was and still is a modern day Ian Buchan -- just a glorified PE teacher. 70 years on... Same Circus -- Different Clown, 20 Posted 04/08/2026 at 01:14:52 I could outrun him and I'm 67 and gave up serious running 25 years ago. 21 Posted 04/08/2026 at 02:15:00 The players had to perform to keep their lifestyle in the only detached house amid neighbours' mere semi's in some newtown development (such as Maghull, where I grew up). Of course, since the Premier League began, we've had inept leadership at the top and hardly any £millionaire players of the '60s quality. It's got incrementally worse, hugely exacerbated by the introduction of "transfer windows" in 2003, a charter from the outset to unfairly protect the top clubs (long since by then not including Everton on account of our inept leadership -- which has got worse ever since when it comes to trophy-winning). So, this season I expect mundanity at best on the pitch, inertia in the boardroom (as ever), and a regular, usually very much deserved, last placing on MotD, as well as increased costs to the fans who are crucial to the very survival of our club at all despite the owners screwing us (as ever it was) for every penny they can acquire. 22 Posted 04/08/2026 at 07:19:22 He is of course entitled to his opinion, but he simply can't cope with those who have a different opinion to him and sadly resorts to ad hominem. 23 Posted 04/08/2026 at 07:38:55 Bleating. Moaning. Accusing. Hedged-in. Static. Pedestrian. Stone. 24 Posted 04/08/2026 at 08:53:20 A manager with not one, single, domestic trophy in his entire career. A manager who steadfastly stands by the same 11 players week after week, even though they are showing no signs of winning. The one thing he does excel in, is making mediocrity sound like success. If some people want to buy into his philosophy, fair play to you. But some of us would like more. 26 Posted 04/08/2026 at 09:27:56 'The club's become a running joke' was more likely. 27 Posted 04/08/2026 at 10:05:26 We've seen that side of things done very badly at Everton in recent years and should be able to appreciate the Moyes positives. I'd even go as far as to say that the ‘hidden' 80% of management is done pretty well by Moyes where other managers do it badly. Pre-season is one that he does well; unfortunately, it is one factor in dozens that have an overall impact. Moyes's problems are the highly visible ones of team selection, tactics and substitutions; you might even add ‘ambition' or ‘attitude'. This ‘top' or ‘visible' 20% of the job is what you're going to be judged on and he's been utterly woeful at it in the last few months. Worse, he seems not only unwilling to learn, but stubbornly arrogant in his belief that his way, which clearly isn't working, remains the best way and no-one else knows anything. It is the unwillingness to learn or improve that means Moyes should have gone at the end of last season. We didn't have a small squad, we had a manager who refused to use the players he had and chose to use many of them incorrectly. Some of his supporters, including ex-players, come out and offer various excuses, but ultimately Moyes repeatedly made clearly bad decisions and refused to change. This is why so many Evertonians lack optimism for the new season as we simply have no belief that he'll do anything differently. Even if we get a run of results, we all know a possible implosion is just around the corner and that, when things go wrong, he won't even try to fix it. 28 Posted 04/08/2026 at 10:24:53 At Man Utd, Moyes was reportedly handed a club issue tablet that electronically scheduled all of his appointments and massive amount of commitments. This was 13 years ago and it was a system that had been used by Sir Alex Ferguson, the outgoing manager. Moyes's response was to refuse to use this and he insisted on his old paper diary because ‘there'd been nothing wrong with using that at Everton'. It was an early alarm bell for the people running that club at that time that their chosen one didn't quite grasp the scale of his task, commitments (corporately and otherwise), and that he was unwilling to embrace suggestions to make his job easier and make him a more effective manager. I wonder if he still uses a paper diary? It reminds me of Dyche and his ‘Gaffer's Day' that he's only too quick to boast about. Have people that employ him failed to see the correlation around his training methods and the fact that his record in August fixtures is absolutely atrocious? At Everton, for example, he played 6 August fixtures and lost them all. A 100% defeat record. 29 Posted 04/08/2026 at 10:31:09 Them last 7 games last season were typical Moyes, everyone at Hill Dickinson and those watching from home could see that back 4 needed changing, but no -- this dinosaur knows better than anyone. The Sunderland game -- sorry, 'capitulation' -- was a disgrace, and the Spurs game was an insult to every decent West Ham fan, he didn't fuckin care. Yes, losing Branthwaite was a disaster but most of us on here could see O'Brien was more than capable of filling the void, but no we all know the dour bastard loves his centre-backs at full-back, he's got previous. I can't recall Patterson having too many bad minutes when called upon but Davey knows best. His treatment of Armstrong, Rohl and Alcaraz was criminal, and we all know they should have all got a lot more game time than they did, and maybe George to a lesser extent. Without the risk of repeating myself, he despises Evertonians. I've got news for you, David: most of the fan base feel the same way about you. 30 Posted 04/08/2026 at 10:47:31 Rooney is most definitely one of the hardest working footballers I ever had the pleasure to watch, Derek, and Yakubu was the complete opposite, mate. Rooney's attitude was immense, Rooney's fitness was immense, but maybe he wasn't the most disciplined footballer when it came to looking after himself properly, and this is probably the reason why he never had anywhere near the longevity of arguably the most disciplined, talented footballer, who has ever lived... His teammate at Man Utd. I remember watching a video of Rooney, compiled by a Man Utd fan, it lasted 8 minutes and it showed a player who always played on the edge, never shirked a tackle or a dirty run for his team, which takes me back to the first sentence I wrote on this post. Work hard, play hard, or work hard and then rest, that's biggest difference to me, Si. I remember reading a book written by Andy Cole that had a page about how Brian Kidd used to absolutely hammer them from time to time in a small corner of their training ground at Carrington. That's another one in the bank, how he ended those sessions, but the difference between Ferguson and the man who he chose to replace himself with was that one knew the value of having a big squad and the other has never been interested in using his squad, preferring to play the same team most weeks. 31 Posted 04/08/2026 at 10:50:02 We would have been in the Championship if it wasn't for Moyes steading the ship, and just coming back up, what an ungrateful bunch you are. Along with West Ham fans who have the same mentality and are now relegated, Moyes would have kept them up to! Bedding into a new stadium. Twelve players out of contract and new players coming in, not a proper pre-season because of going to the States, Branthwaite and Grealish getting injured, losing two of our most influential players at Afcon and never really recovering their previous form. A really tough start for any new manager, and Moyes was the right man, and still may be. "If" we get the signings right, then maybe you wlll be singing like a canary this time next season because were are in Europe... We all know that Grealish wants to come back to Everton, err didn't he train under the wonder manager known as Pep? So he has been coached by possibly the best manager in the history of the Premier League, yet the player is happy to play for a manager who you call a dinosaur because he is 63, bloody hell his training methods cannot be that bad. Perhaps you want a new a young "trendy" coach, new to the rigors of the Premier League? The only trouble is they get sacked every season. Is Moyes perfect? No. Can he be frustrating? Yes, he can; we all want to pick the team. What I will say is we need patience... sadly lacking in many football fans. As a club, we are just getting started in a new stadium and building a new team which has excellent potential. This team with the right additions has some really good players, especially in the midfield. Osman is right. If we can secure a right-back, flank player, and another striker, we're going to be very good: a new dawn is coming. 32 Posted 04/08/2026 at 11:01:00 "In my defence!" Do you want the name of a good brief? No chance of a Not Guilty looking at your statement. 33 Posted 04/08/2026 at 11:19:24 It's not about playing for Moyes, it's about playing for anybody who'll have him right now. 34 Posted 04/08/2026 at 11:38:27 I don't think anybody wants a young trendy manager. We want a successful one. A winner. We can all recognise that Moyes cannot bring this. All he did was steady the ship and got a group of massively underperforming players to dig in and get some results. Fair play to him for that and I am grateful that he was able to do that. But let's not forget that we shouldn't have been in that situation in the first place. Dyche, in fairness to him recognised that these players were not having him -- he couldn't get a performance out of them and he risked relegating Everton if he continued. He wouldn't have wanted that for the club, the supporters, but most of all, he definitely wouldn't have wanted that for himself. But I think with the squad we had last season and the circumstances of other teams underperforming -- a good manager would've brought us a more successful season. Klopp would've qualified that squad last season for the Champions League. Glasner may have won a trophy with it. I'm not saying we could get Klopp but what I am saying is that what we saw last season with Moyes is what we will get, season-in & season-out, as long as he remains manager. And I'm not okay with that. I would rather we risk failure trying to bring success than accepting repeated mediocrity with zero chance or hope of success. 35 Posted 04/08/2026 at 11:39:41 I come on ToffeeWeb way too much. Mostly to engage, having different conversations with different people, and hopefully sometimes to be educated by people who can put things down in words that make me think properly. I really agreed with what Sean wrote @24 & @25 but there's nothing better than reading both the pros and the cons. Although most things are just subjective opinions, I do think Mike is very close to the truth regarding our current uninspiring manager. 36 Posted 04/08/2026 at 11:42:20 In our case, the less good the player is, the more they need to work harder to try and compensate for lack of quality, so getting them super fit makes sense. Martin, you're flogging a dead horse supporting Moyes on here; we always come full circle as far as he is concerned. Let's face it, we have tried umpteen different managers with very little change in results, it's a cop out to keep blaming managers... were they all no good? It's the fecking players who mostly are not good enough that is our biggest problem, not whoever is our fall guy manager. Even Ancelotti didn't make much difference. 37 Posted 04/08/2026 at 12:01:46 I used to think that Moyes only flogged dead horses because he was never given enough money to sign more players off his chairman. Experience has told me different; you only have to read what Merlin Rohl has said about Moyes to realise this. He said the manager loves versatile footballers. There is nothing wrong with this at all... but I think it does tell us a little bit more about a manager who probably still prefers versatility because it helps to keep the squad numbers down. 38 Posted 04/08/2026 at 12:06:33 You also mentioned patience. It's difficult to be patient with a man who had already been at the club for nigh on 12 years previously. Yet is producing exactly the same type of football in his second term. He has done what he was brought in to do and provided the stability that was required. Now it's time to take the next step and Moyes isn't the man to provide that. By the way, Moyes very nearly got West Ham relegated the same season they won the European trophy. Their fans would not want him back. 39 Posted 04/08/2026 at 12:09:44 He probably prefers fewer players because he can't manage a squad and keep everybody happy. When Moyes has had money to spend over his 30-year managerial career, he has failed to spend it well. Including last summer. With a limitless pot at reigning champions Man Utd, he could only sign Marouane Fellaini -- which he did for big money. 40 Posted 04/08/2026 at 12:34:15 I understand the criticism that Moyes gets, everyone is entitled to their opinion, but every thread ends up slagging Moyes off. As I said before, it's top players we need, I'm not that concerned who the manager is. It's players who have to get the results, sure the managers run the ship but it's the players that kick the ball. 41 Posted 04/08/2026 at 12:39:02 Pickford O'Brien Branthwaite Dewsbury-Hall Garner Ndiaye All top players. As in, each of them individually could go into the starting XI of any Champions League team and be at the required standard. Some of them would even improve such a team. 42 Posted 04/08/2026 at 12:41:55 That's what I was alluding to, Tommy. He has had some good results in the transfer market, but he seemed to do better with less money, when it looked like he was a lot more thorough and careful. I have stated often enough that I don't think Moyes has got the personality to keep players happy whilst managing a bigger squad, so he has done what every sensible person does and played to his own particular strengths. It's good enough for some, not everyone is ungrateful, but it's not good enough for others because we simply want a lot more. Agree, Raymond -- that's why I highlighted Mike's post @27, mate. 43 Posted 04/08/2026 at 12:59:05 Branthwaite. Maybe Pickford. 44 Posted 04/08/2026 at 13:10:34 Name a better goalie than Pickford playing right now. And don't make me laugh by naming the usual error-prone Becker, Martinez, Donnarumma, Courtois or even Raya who flaps even more at corners than Pickford but has a better set of defenders to protect him. Just to compare with the neighbours who play Champions League: O'Brien is better than Gomez & Nyoni Garner is better than MacAllister, Jones and Elliot Dewsbury-Hall is better than Chiesa and Wirtz Ndiaye is better than Gakpo, Rio and Munoz. 45 Posted 04/08/2026 at 13:10:59 Would you swap Alexis Mac Allister for Dewsbury-Hall, for example? I'm not sure I would. I think Dewsbury-Hall is an excellent player. Likewise, Ndiaye could play for Man City instead of Doku. Garner could replace Onana at Villa for me. Or even Tielemans at Villa / Man Utd. O'Brien is an excellent centre back and we will see that when a manager eventually plays him there. O'Brien could walk into the Liverpool starting XI tomorrow and improve it. The spine of an excellent team. 2 good full backs and a decent striker away from having a completely excellent team. 46 Posted 04/08/2026 at 13:19:21 We are basically a 12th to 15th side and we would need more ambitious owners than we have, for this to change. One outlier is Bournemouth but even they are 9th in the net spend table and I've no idea how they have done that, given they are a tiny club relative to us. Maybe they have to sell big this year. The other big outlier is Villa who, incredibly, are 19th in that table but I guess the quality of manager explains the reasons for that. You can of course break out of your financial position but you need to get hold of a top-level manager to have any chance. Maybe their luck runs out this year given how much they have offloaded, but maybe not. So for me, it's pointless to bash Moyes when he is after all a middling manager for a middling team with a barely middling budget. And that appears to suit our owners just fine. 47 Posted 04/08/2026 at 13:27:31 Your other 3 are very good players but not quite first pick Top 6 players. 48 Posted 04/08/2026 at 15:26:50 Because they had £200M of midfielders in Enzo Fernandez and Moises Caicedo -- both world class. They buy and sell except for their guaranteed starters, so if there was a fee to be had for Dewsbury-Hall, they were always going to sell. Add Your Comments In order to post a comment, you need to be logged in as a registered user of the site. Or Sign up as a ToffeeWeb Member — it's free, takes just a few minutes and will allow you to post your comments on articles and Talking Points submissions across the site. How to get rid of these ads and support TW