Jamie Carragher Defends Moyes Amid Everton Criticism
Jamie Carragher believes the anger aimed at David Moyes has gone too far, arguing that Everton’s manager deserves more credit for dragging the club away from its relegation rut and back towards European contention.
Everton’s season unravelled in brutal fashion. In March they ripped Chelsea apart and suddenly the Champions League felt just about within reach. Seven games later, without a single win, they were nowhere near Europe. The mood on the blue half of Merseyside turned quickly.
Carragher gets that. He also thinks some supporters have short memories.
Speaking on The Overlap Fan Debate with Sky Bet, the former Liverpool defender said he understood the disappointment over how the campaign collapsed but insisted Moyes’ work should not be dismissed.
“I have always been a David Moyes fan, even when I played against his teams,” Carragher said. “The first time around as Everton manager, he was doing a brilliant job, and he’s done a brilliant job since he’s come back too.”
That is the crux of Carragher’s argument: context.
For years, Everton lived on the edge, lurching from one relegation battle to another, changing managers mid-season just to stay afloat. Sam Allardyce. Marco Silva. Frank Lampard. Sean Dyche. A familiar pattern, the same nervous scramble.
Moyes’ first full season back broke that cycle. Everton were safe long before the run-in. No great escape. No panic. And, for a spell, something far more ambitious: a genuine tilt at the top five and an outside chance of the Champions League.
“The jump from where they’d been to… with seven games to go, you had an outside chance of a top five Champions League position,” Carragher said. “For Everton, it feels like every season they’re trying to fight relegation – they normally change the manager in the middle of the season and end up safe. Then his first full season, which was last season, with seven or eight games to go, you’re talking about having a chance for the Champions League.
“I understand it finished badly, I understand there was disappointment there, and I get it. But I almost feel it’s a little bit harsh, some of the stick he gets.”
The collapse was not just about form. Everton’s winless finish came amid a run of misfortune and frustration. The Key Match Incidents Panel later ruled they should have had penalties against both West Ham United and Manchester City. Key players Beto, Jarrad Branthwaite and Idrissa Gueye picked up injuries at precisely the wrong time. Margins tightened, results slipped, and the table stopped flattering them.
Supporters, Carragher senses, are torn.
He described a fanbase “almost in between with him at the moment, waiting to see how it goes” as Moyes enters the final year of his contract. Uncertainty over the manager’s future hangs over the club, even as expectations rise.
“I feel for David Moyes a little bit,” Carragher said. “At the start of last season, everyone would have said, we just want a season where we don’t have to worry about relegation.
“My point is, it felt like the first half of every season for a good few years, you’d change a manager to make sure you stayed up – going back to Sam Allardyce coming in, seven or eight years ago. Then Marco Silva, Frank Lampard, Sean Dyche. You were getting to a situation where you were going into a season – last season – saying, we just don’t want to ever worry about relegation. That was never there [before]. And then you had [a near miss on] European football.”
That shift in what counts as “acceptable” is, to Carragher, the real sign of progress. Everton fans are no longer clinging to survival as the only measure of success. They want more. They expect more.
“I get that disappointment,” he said. “Everton supporters – for so long – have had nothing to hang onto – there’s just that wanting so much… I’m not saying he should get a new contract, but the next thing this season is: can Everton get to a European position?”
The question now is whether Moyes, under scrutiny and out of contract next summer, can turn that raised bar into a return to Europe – or whether this restless fanbase will decide the club’s next step comes without him.
