Jamie Carragher Defends Moyes Amid Everton Fan Anger

Jamie Carragher says he understands why Everton fans are bruised by the way last season collapsed – but he thinks the backlash against David Moyes has gone too far.

Everton were flirting with the Champions League places after dismantling Chelsea in March. Seven games later, they were nowhere near Europe, stuck in a winless slump and left with a bitter taste after what had promised to be a statement season.

That swing in mood has left Moyes under scrutiny as he enters the final year of his contract. Carragher accepts the anxiety around that uncertainty. But he believes the bigger picture has been lost.

On The Overlap Fan Debate with Sky Bet, the former Liverpool defender made his stance clear.

“I have always been a David Moyes fan, even when I played against his teams,” Carragher said. “The first time around as Everton manager, he was doing a brilliant job, and he’s done a brilliant job since he’s come back too.”

He pointed to the scale of the leap Everton made in a single campaign.

“The jump from where they’d been to – for you saying, with seven games to go, you had an outside chance of a top five Champions League position,” he said. “For Everton, it feels like every season they’re trying to fight relegation – they normally change the manager in the middle of the season and end up safe. Then his first full season, which was last season, with seven or eight games to go, you’re talking about having a chance for the Champions League.”

The collapse at the end is not in dispute. Carragher did not try to dress it up.

“I understand it finished badly, I understand there was disappointment there, and I get it,” he admitted. “But I almost feel it’s a little bit harsh, some of the stick he gets.”

That final stretch was chaotic. Everton went seven without a win and saw key calls go against them. The Key Match Incidents Panel later ruled they should have had penalties against West Ham United and Manchester City. Injuries to Beto, Jarrad Branthwaite and Idrissa Gueye stripped Moyes of important players at the worst possible time.

The pressure told. So did the frustration.

Yet for Carragher, that frustration is also proof of how far expectations have shifted. This was a fanbase that, for five straight years, had lived on the edge of the relegation trapdoor. Survival was the only target. Now, missing out on Europe hurts.

“I feel for David Moyes a little bit,” Carragher said. “At the start of last season, everyone would have said, we just want a season where we don’t have to worry about relegation.”

He then zoomed out, reeling off the churn that had defined Everton’s recent history.

“My point is, it felt like the first half of every season for a good few years, you’d change a manager to make sure you stayed up – going back to Sam Allardyce coming in, seven or eight years ago. Then Marco Silva, Frank Lampard, Sean Dyche.

“You were getting to a situation where you were going into a season – last season – saying, we just don’t want to ever worry about relegation. That was never there [before]. And then you had [a near miss on] European football.”

That, for Carragher, is the crux. Everton moved from firefighting to looking up the table. The disappointment is real, but so is the progress.

“I get that disappointment,” he said. “Everton supporters right – for so long – have had nothing to hang onto – there’s just that wanting so much… I’m not saying he should get a new contract, but the next thing this season is: can Everton get to a European position?”

Moyes’ future remains unresolved. The mood around Goodison is mixed, as Carragher put it, with supporters “almost in between with him at the moment, waiting to see how it goes”.

The question now is simple and unforgiving: does this season turn that “almost” into full backing – or bring the cycle of change roaring back?