David Moyes has told former Everton manager Sam Allardyce that he wants more players at the club, after a transfer window that saw the Blues sell over £100 million worth of talent. The admission came during a conversation at the Nordoff Robbins' Legends of Football 2026 awards event at the JW Marriott Grosvenor House hotel in London on Monday.
Everton's squad reduced to 18 outfield players
Everton pocketed more than £100 million on transfer deadline day after selling Iliman Ndiaye, Beto, Tim Iroegbunam and Nathan Patterson. With Adam Aznou already loaned out, and after a late move for USA and Monaco striker Folarin Balogun collapsed, Moyes was left with a first-team squad of just 18 outfield players, comprising a solitary striker, left-back and right-back.
Despite the lack of options, Everton return to action at Hull City on Sunday following the international break unbeaten across seven matches in all competitions so far this season. The Blues book-ended a sequence of three consecutive Premier League draws against Bournemouth (1-1), Manchester United (2-2) and Tottenham Hotspur (0-0) with home wins over Crystal Palace (2-0) on the opening day and a 1-0 victory against Ipswich Town. In between, they also advanced through two rounds of the Carabao Cup, defeating Championship pair Preston North End 4-0 away and Wolverhampton Wanderers 1-0 at Hill Dickinson Stadium.
Moyes' preferred squad size
Speaking in his pre-match press conference to preview the trip to Spurs on September 12, Moyes discussed his ideal squad size and acknowledged it was bigger than the group he is currently having to work with. He said: “We’ve not got European football this year, so maybe we can find a way of getting through with what we’ve got at the moment?
“I do think sometimes having a tight group can work. I’m not saying it will and if I had my choice I’d have more numbers obviously, but I certainly wasn’t somebody who needed 24 or 25 outfield players, it wasn’t that I was looking for. I’ve tried to work mainly with 21 outfield players, that’s the number I’ve tried to have and sometimes you can maybe have 22, it can be a bit bigger, but around that number would have been my choice.”
Allardyce's comments on the conversation
Allardyce, who was Everton manager during the 2017/18 season, discussed the conversation on the latest edition of the Footy Accumulators No Tippy Tappy Football podcast, in partnership with BOYLE Sports. He said: “We talked a bit about Manchester City obviously. I talked a bit to Moyesy about how it is at Everton. He’s doing a great job.
“Like everything, we all want it to be better, we all want to have better players because better players make better managers. He would like some more players. I don’t think you can ever be satisfied with what players you’ve got. You’ve almost always got to try and find a better one in the windows because if you sit and linger you fall backwards in this league.”
