Everton handed 'really important' injury boost in good time for Leeds United clash but David Moyes unhappy
Leeds United are less than three weeks away from kicking off their 2025/26 Premier League season at home to Everton.
Everton welcomed back experienced defender James Tarkowski overnight with two-and-a-half weeks to build fitness ahead of their Elland Road trip.
Leeds United welcome the Toffees to West Yorkshire on Monday August 18 in what will be their first game of the 2025/26 Premier League campaign. Jaka Bijol will miss out due to a suspension carried over from his final-day red card at Udinese in a frustrating blow, but the Whites have looked strong through pre-season.
Everton, meanwhile, have struggled. They were beaten by Blackburn Rovers earlier this month and have lost twice against Bournemouth and West Ham in the USA, the latter a 2-1 defeat overnight which was riddled with errors on both sides. But a welcome boost arrived with the return of Tarkowski, who got his first minutes since a hamstring injury that kept him out of last season’s final four matches.
"One of the positives was getting Tarky back for 20 minutes," manager David Moyes said after last night’s defeat. "He's been out for more than 12 weeks now, so to get him back is really important. A big strength of the team is probably Tarky and Jarrad [Branthwaite] and the goalkeeper [Jordan Pickford], so to get Tarky back today for a little while was good."
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But on the face of it, that was where the positives of last night’s game ended for Everton. The Toffees struggled to create anything of note going forward - their goal came from a West Ham mistake - and a usually solid defence was also disjointed. So far, the only new faces for Moyes to work with have been young forward Thierno Barry, teenage left-back Adam Aznou and back-up goalkeeper Mark Travers, while 11 senior players have left.
Everton transfer frustration ahead of Leeds United trip
Following last year’s takeover by The Friedkin Group, there was growing optimism around Merseyside that Everton could finally enjoy a summer of serious investment. But as of yet, that hasn’t come to fruition and the window so far has been a frustrating one for Moyes, who has regularly spoken of needing a significant number of further additions before September 1.
"I'm not overly concerned because I don't have the players I need,” the Toffees boss bluntly remarked. “Obviously, we're really up against it and we knew before the start of the [Summer Series tournament] that we were going to be really up against it. We finished above two of the three other teams that are playing in it, so we have to get back on it. But, at the moment, until we get our better players back and until we add to the squad, we're going to have a struggle.
"I think there is a bigger turnover of players now at clubs than there used to be. It used to be signing maybe three or four, tops, every season, but because of the way with the bigger squads and boys not getting games, you find that there's a bigger revolving door of players. A lot of clubs will be signing quite big numbers. Ours is partly because of the position we had, the situation we had with players. We wanted to have the players in a lot sooner, especially coming here, because I knew we'd be incredibly short.”