SPOT OF BOTHER AS BLUES CRASH OUT OF FA CUP

Momentum of new Everton project faltering as silverware hopes killed off in shoot-out loss

- By JOE THOMAS

It is time for some honest conversations about the next stage of the Everton project.

With defeat in the FA Cup to Sunderland, a season of progress ground to a juddering halt. The club is set to avoid a relegation battle for the first time in five years and that had to be the priority. But what was building towards a campaign of real promise has imploded in a brutal six-day reality check at the club’s new stadium.

The mauling at home to Brentford and the chaotic draw with bottom-of-the-table Wolverhampton Wanderers has not rendered a push for Europe impossible but it is now unlikely. Another meek cup exit means the wait for silverware will extend into a 32nd year. So what next?

Everton are just three points away from the top six but the momentum, and now the fixture list, is against them. So too is luck. David Moyes would dearly love to take Everton back into Europe at the first time of asking and if he is to have any chance of that then he needs to be backed in the January transfer window.

The Blues boss ended this game with three academy players on the pitch and thanking the teenage left back he had ignored for six months for making a game of this. He was without NINE first team players and they will start to return in the coming days but even then there is little doubt this squad is too stretched in too many places to maintain an assault on the top half of the table that felt within reach after that morale-boosting win at Nottingham Forest at the end of 2025.

Moyes must shoulder some of the responsibility for the frustrating run of results - not just from this week but for the missed opportunities that preceded them. Could he have acted before the collapse against Wolves, for instance? Was he too cautious at Burnley or too experimental at Wolves in the Carabao Cup loss there?