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Perhaps it was the uncharacteristic April heat, late-season fatigue or something else entirely, but Saturday’s game between West Ham United and Everton did not always feel like one with major ramifications for both ends of the Premier League table.

For most of the match, the lack of spark on the pitch and in the stands did not seem to match West Ham’s status as relegation battlers or Everton’s position as European contenders. Urgency in either side’s play was only evident late on, when David Moyes’ side levelled before the hosts successfully pushed for a winner that boosted their survival chances.

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Everton remain aggrieved by the matchday officials’ failure to award a penalty after Mateus Fernandes handled the ball in the second half but this was a flawed, uneven performance, and they failed to hold on for a point after Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall’s 88th-minute equaliser.

There was a notable difference in pace and athleticism between the teams. Everton butchered early counter-attacks and lacked runners in behind without striker Beto, who suffered a concussion in the previous week’s Merseyside derby.


West Ham carried more threat on the wings, with Crysencio Summerville, the game’s outstanding player, thriving in the space between the lines. Jarrod Bowen provided two assists while full-backs Kyle Walker-Peters, who Everton decided against pursuing last summer, and El Hadji Malick Diouf played important roles in Callum Wilson’s winner.

There has been plenty of discussion of this Everton squad’s flaws — their inability to create chances from full-back, the lack of a consistent goalscorer and an over-reliance on the injured central defender Jarrad Branthwaite — but less talk about how they use fringe players, such as Tyler Dibling, Adam Aznou and Merlin Rohl.

David Moyes greets Everton's Carlos Alcaraz
David Moyes greets substitute Carlos Alcaraz following Saturday’s 2-1 loss to West HamRob Newell – CameraSport via Getty Images
Yet Everton came to life on Saturday when Moyes threw caution to the wind and turned to his bench, first by introducing on-loan Chelsea winger Tyrique George and midfielder Tim Iroegbunam shortly after the hour, and later when Carlos Alcaraz replaced the more defence-minded Idrissa Gueye.

Against tiring legs, the trio gave Everton elements they had been lacking: greater dynamism and drive in the middle of the park and, in George, a direct threat out wide capable of beating opposition markers and standing up crosses or striking at goal.

Moyes has a reputation for favouring stability in selection. He trusts a relatively small group of core players and tends to make fewer substitutions than most of his peers. That is borne out in the numbers.

The Athletic’s data team has created a ‘squad stability rating’ that measures how reliably each club distribute minutes across starting players and substitutes within a season. Put simply, a high figure shows a settled side, while a lower one suggests a manager is frequently chopping and changing his players. This analysis accounts for starting players and the share of substitute minutes to demonstrate a manager’s approach.



Based on this algorithm, Everton have the most stable squad in the Premier League this season.

The below shows how Moyes allocates minutes to his squad, with players split into three categories based on age: experience, peak and youth.



Almost all of Moyes’s regulars are from the ‘peak’ and ‘experience’ categories, with younger players tending to have a much smaller share of minutes. This is not uncommon in the Premier League, but the pattern at Everton is pronounced.

Of the summer signings, only Dewsbury-Hall, Manchester City loanee Jack Grealish and Thierno Barry have passed the 50 per cent threshold usually viewed by chief executive Angus Kinnear as a barometer of success for transfers. In Alcaraz, Dibling, Rohl and Aznou, Everton committed around £75million ($101m at current exchange rates) in fees to players on the periphery — the obligation to buy Rohl from Freiburg has already been triggered after Everton confirmed their top-flight status for next season.

Stability in selection is by no means a bad thing. Moyes undoubtedly sees it as a virtue.

“The team has been doing pretty well, so they (fringe players) have not been required that often,” he said in the embargoed section of Friday’s press conference, as quoted by the Liverpool Echo’s Royal Blue newsletter. “It’s always the ones who are not in who are the ones you think can do a better job, so it’s one of those things.”

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Asked specifically about Rohl, he admitted the 23-year-old “could easily have played a bit more”. Since earning praise from Moyes after January’s 1-0 win at Aston Villa, when the squad was threadbare, the German has made just two appearances, totalling five minutes.

On Dibling, Moyes said he remains a player “we like” but that the 20-year-old former Southampton winger will need more time due to “his age”.

Moyes also noted that other clubs have struggled to blood talent and he estimates the success rate of transfers is closer to 25 per cent this season.

Young players need minutes to develop and either keep or grow their value. In a completely hypothetical scenario where Everton wanted to cash in on Dibling this summer, they would be highly unlikely to recoup the initial £40million they paid Southampton to sign him last summer.

The commonly accepted wisdom is that experience gets you through. Everton’s continued push for Europe means that chances are likely to be few and far between for that group of young players between now and the end of the season.

Everton's Tyrique George
Chelsea loanee Tyrique George has featured sparingly this seasonCarl Recine/Getty Images
But recent results, admittedly decided on fine margins, have highlighted issues in the squad.

Everton’s senior players have been at fault for goals in the past couple of weeks, with Dewsbury-Hall, speaking in the wake of the weekend’s loss at the London Stadium, calling on them all to take “accountability”. Meanwhile, a veteran such as the 36-year-old Gueye may need to be managed carefully and given a breather in games.

Alcaraz, Iroegbunam and George made a difference for Everton on Saturday before Wilson’s late sucker punch, even if they were less suited to helping them see out the game. Others, such as the 19-year-old midfielder Harrison Armstrong, who was restored to the bench against West Ham after missing out on the squad in the previous two games, Rohl and right-back Nathan Patterson have shown, at different times, that they too can contribute.

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Moyes said on Friday that Armstrong had “a bit of a dip” and would need to return to the levels he showed in January after being recalled from his loan at Championship side Preston North End.

Patterson had been close to a January deadline-day move to Genoa until the Italian side’s deal with Inter for Brooke Norton-Cuffy collapsed, but he is a genuine right-back. His presence would also allow a shift to centre-back for Jake O’Brien, the most obvious like-for-like replacement for the injured Branthwaite. Without Branthwaite, the defence tends to drop deep, opening up the kind of space between the lines that Summerville exploited.

Alcaraz, 23, was not a Moyes recruitment pick and can be erratic in his play. But the Argentine is more experienced and offers the sort of bustle and ingenuity that can help Everton push up the pitch and unpick defences.

The accepted logic at the club on George is that he will almost certainly need to force his way into the side more regularly if they are to activate the £25million purchase option in his loan deal. His best moments have come as an impact substitute.

There will no doubt be calls later in the season for Moyes to find out more about the rest of his squad, if Everton’s European dream finishes early.

But, as Saturday showed, at least some of these fringe players could be key to ensuring those hopes do not fade prematurely — provided they are given the chance in the first place.

Patrick Boyland
|
Everton Correspondent

Mark Carey
|
Football Writer

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APR 29, 2026
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