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The 20.12 from London Euston to Liverpool Lime Street resembled an old football-special train on Saturday with Evertonians in full voice and party mode for the entirety of the journey following victory at Fulham. The impact of another valuable away win was not lost on David Moyes or his players. They were in the second carriage and listened to the celebrations all the way home.
“It was brilliant on the train going back because we knew what it meant,” the Everton manager said. “If you’re an away supporter and you put your money and your effort into getting to all the games, it’s a thrill when your team get results. And we did, we got it pretty late again. I think part of the job here is to actually give the Evertonians something to shout about and the away supporters have probably had it a bit better than the home ones. We need the home ones to give us everything which the away supporters are giving us as well.”
The 2-1 win at Craven Cottage was Everton’s sixth on the road in the Premier League this season. Since Moyes returned to the club in January 2025 Everton have won 11 of 22 Premier League away games – one more than in the previous three and a half seasons combined. Train trips were a more arduous experiences for players, staff and fans then.
The task now is to transfer that positivity, and the connection that was evident on one of the last trains out of London to Liverpool on Saturday, to Hill Dickinson Stadium. Everton have won four of 12 league games at their superb new home, none since beating Nottingham Forest on 6 December, and failed to build on impressive recent away wins when Brentford, Wolves and Leeds visited. The arrival of an improving Bournemouth team on Tuesday represents another of the opportunities that Everton have so far failed to take this year.
Moyes believes the discrepancy between Everton’s home and away form, along with the narrative that the club are the latest to struggle to acclimatise to a new stadium, are overplayed. The emotional final season at Goodison Park witnessed only five home league wins after all. He has, however, regularly made the point that while Everton are enjoying playing at Hill Dickinson, “maybe the opposition do too”. The £800m development has not witnessed a statement victory from Everton, who have yet to welcome Liverpool, Chelsea and the two Manchester clubs to the banks of the River Mersey.
The Everton manager is searching for explanations and answers to his team’s home form. “We’ve got bigger spaces at the new stadium, the pitch size won’t be that much different, but it does have a bit of an effect on how it feels,” he says. “It feels much more spacious, the pitch and the area. It’s difficult to explain but I’m trying to come up with reasons for it.”
Moyes adds: “We are certainly more adventurous at home because, if you think about it, we’ve played most of the season with two wingers and there has been a change in the last year. We’ve tried to give the supporters something else if we can and we’ve been more open in transition but in the main it has worked well for us. We don’t really want to stop doing that. Away from home we can be slightly different, a bit more compact. I don’t think we want to turn up like that at home. We want to be more aggressive if we can.”
Everton would leapfrog Liverpool and Brentford into sixth with a win over Andoni Iraola’s side and give credence to Moyes’ claims that European qualification should be a target for this season. The manager’s ambition is regularly stated for a reason. Moyes remains genuinely shocked by the number of players who rejected Everton last summer because the club could not offer European football. The financial chaos and relegation battles of the Farhad Moshiri years had left Everton in an unflattering light with many targets.
“I think Everton should be kicking around those places, I really do,” he says. “All the years they were not, I think they were wasted years. Everton should be attempting to be that. We might not be good enough to be there, we might be short of it and you might write something about it later in the season because I was talking about it, but I have been trying to make Everton more positive. A better look, a better feel and better results in the hope that … hey, you never know. It might be too soon this year. We could lose two games and I’ll be saying: ‘Hey, it’s great we have avoided relegation’. But at the moment, the position we are in, we have to keep thinking we can challenge the top. I am trying to drive that through and want the players to hear that that is the plan.
“Looking back now I think: ‘My goodness, those years in Europe made some difference to West Ham as a football club.’ Some difference to the finances, the way people see it. We had a semi-final, a quarter-final and a final in three years. Next weekend, because we are knocked out of the FA Cup, I’ll be sat twiddling my thumbs so I want us to be involved in it. I am too old to sit here and say I’m just going to try and keep us away from the bottom of the league. I have to set the bar high and I want the players to believe that we’ve got a chance of doing it, and they do.”
