Two Everton games in Germany, and David Moyes didn’t say a word.
Hamburg came and went. So did Saturday’s 3-1 defeat to Stuttgart — Everton’s most chastening result of the summer, littered with the same defensive frailties that plagued last season.
No press conference followed either match. No word from the manager at all.
Pre-season access is, by tradition, always looser than during the season. Clubs run leaner media operations on the road, and it’s not unheard of for a manager to hand reaction duties to an assistant for a friendly nobody outside the fanbase cares about.
That’s the boring explanation, and it is probably the right one. Also, to be fair, it tends to be the norm for the club to put up a player after pre-season friendlies. Those in the know suspect he’ll do one after the Lille game at the Hill Dickinson.
But those two straight silences, on a trip with genuinely awkward questions attached, start to look like a choice rather than a pre-season quirk. Even if they’re not.
Branthwaite was handed the captaincy and then made the mistake that led to Stuttgart’s opener. The back four didn’t survive the afternoon intact. Far from it.
And Everton’s right-back search — stalled, sceptical insiders and all — is no closer to resolution than it was a month ago. These are exactly the things a manager gets asked about after a pre-season loss.
Moyes hasn’t been asked, because Moyes hasn’t shown up.
None of this adds up to a conspiracy. Managers go quiet for mundane reasons more often than not. But Everton haven’t offered one, and two games without their manager fronting up is enough to notice.
If there’s a simple answer, maybe the club should give it. If things were going swimmingly, no one would even notice.
Maybe Moyes will turn up in the press room at Murrayfield this week when the Toffees face Newcastle. We’ll see.
But, at the very least, it would be good to hear from him after the Lille game.
