Everton are a stoic football club. They have had to be, with more misery than success from an outside perspective.

But that's a narrow way of looking at one of the most incredible sides in the country, rich with history and enveloped at the Hill Dickinson by four blue walls of stentorian Toffees support.

Former Everton star Leon Osman recently said he "wouldn't swap being an Evertonian for anything in the world", and it's just a shame that the powers that be are unable to demonstrate the ambition shared by the larger Everton persuasion.

David Moyes is hungry to put the Merseysiders back into Europe, challenging for titles, but that's easier said than done given that the owners, The Friedkin Group, and technical director Angus Kinnear have hamstrung Moyes and his squad this summer.

How Angus Kinnear has failed Everton

"I know David [Moyes] believes that this season he can go one step further and start to achieve something really tangible on the pitch."

These words were spoken by Kinnear at the start of the 2026/27 season, with a few weeks left of the summer transfer window. The powers that be at Everton were in concert: improvements were needed after the Toffees fell by the wayside at the end of the term, going seven without a win in the Premier League.

Kinnear might have been against blowing caution to the need, but when you're so hesitant as to be inert, then questions must be raised of the club's strategy.

With the window shut, Everton are considerably weaker than when they set out after finishing 13th last season. Iliman Ndiaye and Beto have been torn from the Merseysiders' frontline, with only Brennan Johnson, Tyrique George and Jack Grealish, the latter duo back after their loan spells last season, covering.

It's not good enough, and the ambitious edge to this industrious squad could be failed by a lack of depth that is not Moyes' fault. It's not the players' fault either, but they will bear the brunt of the criticism.

Kinnear is surely skating on thin ice after his catastrophe of a window in the director's chair. If he doesn't sort out another budding problem on Merseyside, it could see supporters call for his head en masse.

Kinnear is now heading towards his biggest Everton mistake

Kinnear was supposed to inject some new life into an Everton side who had fell by the wayside under Farhad Moshiri and previous sporting director Kevin Thelwell, but the inverse has happened.

Folarin Balogun and Joshua Zirkzee were coveted on deadline day, but neither wound up at the Hill Dickinson. Key players were still sold, and Everton are all the weaker.

However, they could be hampered further still by the end of the season, with Moyes out of contract next summer. It should go without saying that he needs more time at the helm, but so far, there is no inkling that Everton will enter negotiations with Moyes over a new contract.

That said, the Scotsman has left it late in the past. When he drew down the curtain on his title-winning tenure with West Ham United in London, Moyes admitted toward the end of the 2023/24 season, he admitted he did not know whether he would be offered an extension at the London Stadium - just a few months after reports from Sky Sports suggested he had agreed a new two-and-a-half-year deal with the Hammers.

Moyes has ambitions. The 63-year-old is acutely aware that he is no longer a young buck on the managerial circuit, and he wants to lead Everton back into Europe - perhaps then challenge for silverware which has alluded the club for so long, since they lifted the FA Cup in 1925.

Is Kinnear the right collaborator to deliver Moyes the resources he needs to make that happen? Well, while fans would be happy to see the director leave his post, it's actually Moyes that they need to be concerned about; with the veteran coach indeed out of a deal at the end of the season, it's clear that he might decide to search for an opportunity elsewhere if Everton do not reflect his ambitions.

Moyes' tactical approach is rooted in pragmatism. Some might yearn for a more expansive and free-flowing brand of football, but how has that gone for West Ham, who clamoured for such ideas at the end of Moyes' reign? Now, the Irons are competing in the Championship.

Kinnear has not got much right so far, but he must know that extending Moyes' time at the club is a matter of the utmost importance. Moyes instils the coherence and togetherness that is binding this short-changed project together right now, and failure to extend would surely spell the end for Everton's latest under-fire sporting director.