David Moyes returned to Everton in January, replacing a rather beleaguered Sean Dyche at the helm.
We all know this, but few foresaw the impact that the Scotsman would have on a tired outfit routinely threatened by relegation from the Premier League. Everton in fact did not finish the 2024/25 campaign in an imperilled position, but comfortably in mid-table, bouncing up and up across the second half of the term.
Now, after a summer exodus and a wave of fresh talent – Jack Grealish, looking at you – the Toffees are ready to compete for a top-half-of-the-table finish.
Grealish is the talisman, but Everton are built on a range of industrious players all working toward a shared goal. It’s what Moyes knows, with his previous tenure on Merseyside laden with unsung heroes who played important roles.
Moyes' unsung heroes at Everton
With Moyes at the helm across the noughties, Everton were a stable and competitive club. From 2006/07, seven times in succession did the manager and his squad maintain top-half finishes in the Premier League, with many under-the-radar stars pulling their weight alongside some more prominent peers.
Leon Osman would be a case in point, the retired midfielder spending almost all of his career at Goodison Park, racking up 433 appearances for the club. The lion’s share came in Moyes’ system. He didn’t boast the skill or the technical range to reach superstardom in the Premier League, but he worked tirelessly and was as tenacious as they get.
Leon Osman
Everton
345
Tim Howard
Everton
310
Phil Neville
Everton
303
Tony Hibbert
Everton
303
Tim Cahill
Everton
278
Tony Hibbert and Phil Neville also played immense stretches of their careers with Moyes’ Everton, always willing to do the hard yards and let the likes of Tim Cahill reap the praises with fine finishes and leaping headers.
Similarly, Mikel Arteta was a workhorse under Moyes’ wing. However, the now Arsenal manager was endowed with a footballing intellect and breadth of passing qualities that led the tactician to call his protege “head and shoulders” above the rest.
It’s a shame, with all this in mind, that Everton parted ways with Alex Iwobi a few years back, with the versatile Nigerian seemingly perfect for a dynamic role in Moyes’ Everton team.
Why Iwobi would be perfect for Everton
Everton signed a young Iwobi from Arsenal back in 2018, and he didn’t come cheap.
The Hale End winger arrived in a £34m deal, and he would play 140 times for Everton across five seasons, and he would ebb and flow, finishing his time at a club on a high, though, refashioned into a robust and versatile midfielder, pulled away from the attacking flank berth that had failed to yield prolific returns.
Now 29 years old, Iwobi is certainly something of an unsung hero in the Premier League himself, with journalist Daniel Storey hailing him as “one of the most underrated midfielders in the country” on the Totally Football Show this week.
Iwobi’s impressive – and, crucially, consistent – performances lend credence to that claim, with data-led platform FBref recording him to have ranked among the top 12% of positional peers in the Premier League last season for passes attempted, the top 6% for progressive passes and the top 5% for carries into the final third
A pass is considered progressive if the distance between the starting point and the next touch is at least 10 meters closer to the opponent’s goal or any completed pass into the penalty area.
Moyes would have loved him, deploying this slick and athletic distributor centrally and out wide, as he did with Arteta way back when.
Iwobi scored nine goals and supplied six assists in the Premier League last year. He created 12 big chances and won 1.2 tackles and 3.1 duels per game.
And this season, he’s started strongly, with a goal and two assists across five appearances under Marco Silva’s wing. Curiously, Silva was the man who welcomed him to Goodison Park.
Trust is a valuable thing in football, with this symbiotic relationship working well for a Fulham side well settled in the top flight after years of inconsistency.
Everton have a range of talented options right now, but Iwobi is an extremely underrated player, and it’s interesting to consider whether he would have stayed put had he known Moyes was heading back to Liverpool.