Credit: Manh Tung, Breaking Media

James Barker

Mon 25 May 2026 14:10, UK

Everton need to get their act together this summer, as their final day defeat to Tottenham shows why it’s not catastrophising to say that the Toffees are in major trouble.

As March turned to April, Everton were sitting in a prime position to qualify for European football for the first time since 2017.

David Moyes‘ side were playing well, and the veteran boss was getting the best out of a limited Toffees team that didn’t boast much squad depth.

However, April would make fools out of everyone believing that Everton were going to be playing continental football next season, as they wouldn’t win another Premier League match over the final two calendar months of the campaign.

So, as the inquest into why this happened begins, Everton’s end to the 2025-26 season should have serious alarm bells ringing inside Hill Dickinson Stadium.

How bad were Everton against Tottenham?

Desperate to take a winning feeling into the summer with them, Everton travelled to North London for a final day clash with Tottenham.

Spurs realistically only needed to draw against the Toffees in order to stay in the Premier League, but they were able to go one better than that by running out 1-0 winners.

Joao Palhinha scored the winning goal on 43 minutes in comical fashion as far as Everton are concerned, as the midfielder was allowed to first send an uncontested header crashing off the post, before remaining unchallenged when putting the rebound in.

As per FotMob, Everton only completed 92 passes at a 75 per cent success rate in the first half compared to Tottenham’s 200, whilst creating zero big chances or putting any shots on target.

In the second half, Moyes’ men still didn’t create any big chances but did put one shot on target, whilst they upped their accurate passes played to 224, but that was largely down to Spurs going more defensive to protect their lead.

Everton finished the game having won just 47 per cent of their ground duels, whilst recording an expected goals (xG) of 0.41 and with Spurs having taken almost double their number of touches inside the box (17 to 30).

Everton are three transfer exits away from relegation danger

Moyes is now facing sack questions at Everton due to the manner of which their season fell apart, ending up not even being able to finish inside the top half, settling for 13th instead.

Their 49 points were just 10 more than 18th-placed West Ham won this past term, and if the season was to have ran for another month, the trajectory the Toffees were on would surely have put them in serious relegation trouble.

Everton’s starting lineup against Tottenham was poor, and if you were to take Iliman Ndiaye, James Garner and Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall out of it, all of whom could leave this summer, then that’s a very weak side indeed.

When looking for inspiration from the bench, with all due respect, there was very little there against Spurs that would have any Premier League side worried.

Beto, Harrison Armstrong, Tyrique George, Carlos Alcaraz and Seamus Coleman respectively were the five subs who came on against the Lilywhites, with Mark Travers, Adam Aznou, Dwight McNeil and Tyler Dibling respectively the unused subs.

Now look at Tottenham’s bench: Pape Sarr, Randal Kolo Muani, Archie Gray, James Maddison, Radu Dragusin, Guglielmo Vicario, Lucas Bergvall, Yves Bissouma and Dominic Solanke respectively, and that’s not including their host of injured stars.

If Spurs can be battling relegation on the final day of the season with those sorts of players sitting on the bench, then make no mistake, Everton certainly can be next term if they don’t make some quality additions this summer.

Everton had appeared to have grown out of their dances with danger, but if serious and shrewd transfer investment doesn’t arrive, and they lose one or two of their best players, 2026-27 could be a very long year.

Updated 24/7 with expert analysis from the heart of Goodison Park.