Everton's Attack Struggles Highlight Moyes's Summer Challenges
Everton’s pre-season jog into Lancashire delivered a far more sobering message than a 0-0 at Bolton Wanderers might suggest. On paper, it was another workout, another clean sheet, another chance to build rhythm. On the pitch, it was a glaring reminder of what David Moyes does not have: goals, fluency, and any real cutting edge.
He does, at least, have Jarrad Branthwaite back.
Branthwaite returns, but creativity misfires
The centre-back, wearing the No 4 shirt, made a welcome return to the starting XI and moved smoothly enough through his 45 minutes, a rare piece of good news in a summer where Everton’s recruitment department has been conspicuously quiet. Hayden Hackney, the club’s solitary new signing, was again absent, while Tyler Dibling also sat this one out with a minor knock. Both are expected to feature against Stoke City on Tuesday.
James Garner is now recovering from groin surgery and watched on, but Vitalii Mykolenko rejoined the squad after missing last week’s action for the birth of his second child, coming on at half-time.
Bolton began on the front foot, pinning Everton back and asking early questions of the visitors’ defensive shape. A long ball from O’Brien for Lewis Dobbin Barry to chase briefly broke the pattern. The home goalkeeper charged out, misjudged his header and clattered into Barry, only for the referee to award the foul against the Everton forward.
Moments later, Merlin Röhl overlapped neatly and appeared to win a corner, the ball clearly flicking off a Bolton defender, but the assistant’s flag stayed down and Bolton escaped. It set the tone: Everton’s attacks were sporadic, their protests ignored, their quality inconsistent.
Bolton kept the game in Everton’s half, with Rodriguez bending a shot from the corner of the area that forced Travers to stay alert. When Everton did stitch moves together, they found ways to waste them. Aznou threaded a clever pass into Barry’s feet in the box, but the striker hesitated instead of hitting it first time, allowing a defender to smother the chance.
Barry then saw a cross headed behind for a corner. A short routine brought another set-piece, but both deliveries were meek and easily cleared. Tim Iroegbunam did the dirty work in front of the back four, snapping into tackles and screening well, while Everton’s players felt the referee gave Bolton plenty of leeway in the challenge.
A Bolton header drifted just wide with Travers scrambling, a warning that the Championship side were more than comfortable in the contest.
Margins and missed chances
For a brief spell, Everton looked like a Premier League side. James Tarkowski fizzed a superb diagonal into Dwight McNeil, who took it in stride and whipped a teasing cross onto Barry’s head. The forward glanced inches wide of the far post. It was the kind of chance a confident striker buries without thinking.
Soon after, Röhl produced the best moment of the half. His first-time low cross from the right sliced through the Bolton defence and Barry finished clinically from close range, only to see the flag go up for a marginal offside. It was tight, and it was about as close as Everton came all afternoon to finding a decisive moment.
Bolton responded, getting in behind Aznou, who recovered impressively to put off the striker’s shot. At the other end, Aznou and Barry combined again but failed to dig out a meaningful cross. Barry then slipped Armstrong through, continued his run and received the return in a good shooting position, only to scuff a tame effort straight at the goalkeeper.
The half ended with Everton nudging the game higher up the pitch but never truly convincing. The lack of a natural finisher, or a midfielder willing to burst into scoring positions, hung over every move. The pattern was already clear: solid enough at the back, short of ideas and conviction where it matters most.
Barry struggles, Beto no upgrade
The second half began with a moment that summed up Barry’s afternoon and Everton’s attacking malaise. In an advanced position, one defender between him and goal, he seemed perfectly set to drive forward or shoot. Instead, without looking, he rolled a pass to his left, into empty space, as if expecting an overlapping run from a ghost. The ball trundled harmlessly out of play. Heads dropped.
At the other end, Bolton produced a firm header that substitute goalkeeper King, on for Travers at the break, did well to push away, with Michael Keane marshalling the follow-up. Barry then lost the ball cheaply in midfield, shrugged aside far too easily. Moyes had seen enough. On came Beto in the 53rd minute.
McNeil tried to drag the game Everton’s way, working a neat move with Röhl, whose driven shot across goal forced a parry from the Bolton keeper. On the left, George and Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall combined with some promise, but the resulting cross flew across the six-yard box without a finishing touch.
Bolton freshened their side with changes on the hour, and the game fractured.
A long ball over the top finally gave Beto the run he wanted. The bounce sat up invitingly. Instead of a composed finish, he lashed wildly, sending the ball high and wide, nowhere near the target. For a striker under scrutiny, it was a brutal miss.
King had to parry another Bolton effort behind for a corner as the hosts grew bolder. Dewsbury-Hall was then yanked back by the shirt in full view of the referee, earning a yellow card for the defender and underlining how often Everton’s most assertive moments came from their midfielders rather than their forwards.
McNeil, perhaps frustrated by what he was seeing ahead of him, decided to take responsibility from distance. His shot, though, was as wayward as Beto’s. Bolton seized on the let-off, pushed forward again and forced another corner off Keane.
George then attempted an ambitious cross-field ball to McNeil. It sailed over his team-mate’s head and straight into touch, a picture of a team searching for answers and finding only loose passes.
Late flurries, same old story
As Bolton rotated heavily, the rhythm drained from the contest. Graham won a free-kick wide on the left but Everton wasted it, and Dewsbury-Hall’s next cross again evaded everyone in the area.
George, one of the brighter sparks, slid a superb pass into Beto’s path in the box. This time the striker did not even reach the point of missing the target; he simply stumbled, lost his balance and surrendered the ball. For a player on Premier League wages, it was a painful watch.
From another George free-kick, Tarkowski rose to nod the ball back across goal, only for Keane to completely misdirect his header, sending it nowhere near the net. Three more Everton substitutions with 10 minutes to play added fresh legs but not fresh ideas.
Bolton pieced together one of the best moves of the game late on, forcing Mykolenko into a stretching intervention that conceded a corner, which Everton cleared. Malik Olayiwola then tried to inject some quality from distance, striking cleanly from long range but too close to the goalkeeper. Bolton carved one last opening down the middle, only to fire into the side netting.
The whistle went on a goalless draw that will be described as “a good workout” inside the camp. In truth, it was something more pointed. It was a public demonstration of just how much work Moyes still has in front of him.
Squad gaps laid bare
Everton’s line-up told its own story. Branthwaite’s return and Mykolenko’s reintegration are positives. Iroegbunam looked disciplined. Röhl showed flashes. Dewsbury-Hall and George tried to knit things together. At the back, there was enough organisation to keep a lively Bolton side at bay.
Yet every time the ball reached the final third, the same issues surfaced. Hesitation. Poor decisions. Weak finishing. From Barry’s misjudged choices to Beto’s wayward strikes and miscontrols, the forwards offered little to suggest that this group, as it stands, can carry the scoring burden of a Premier League season.
Moyes has been hampered by budget, by circumstances, by a recruitment drive that has yet to truly start. This stalemate in the heart of Lancashire did not change any of that. It simply underlined the urgency.
The clean sheets will please him. The structure, at times, too. But unless the club finds either a ruthless streak in the players already here or the funds to bring in new faces, how many more afternoons like this lie ahead?
