Everton summer plans are about to get bigger and better with elite changes clear

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Everton summer plans are about to get bigger and better with elite changes clear

Chris Beesley

5 – 7 minutes

ECHO Everton reporter Chris Beesley brings you his first tour diary from the Blues’ US trip for the Premier League Summer Series

David Moyes loves an ‘American Dream’ for pre-season but Everton’s latest US tour under the Scot is different in many ways, especially when it comes to the size of the occasion.

It’s often said that: “Everything’s bigger in Texas,” but that wasn’t the case when Moyes’ Blues side made their first transatlantic jaunt some 21 years ago. On July 29, 2004, Everton played their inaugural game on US soil with the Glaswegian at the helm, ironically in Houston, the home city of the club’s new owners The Friedkin Group.

The Blues faced Mexican champions Pachuca at the 72,220 capacity Reliant Stadium (now NRG Stadium), home of NFL side Houston Texans but the stands of the huge arena, which opened just two years earlier, were largely empty as just 8,346 spectators saw Everton triumph 5-2 thanks to a Thomas Gravesen brace, plus further strikes from James McFadden, Kevin Campbell and Kevin Kilbane. The crowd almost doubled to 16,434 as the Blues lost 3-1 to another outfit from south of the border, Club America, at the same venue some three days later but rodeo organisers certainly weren’t losing sleep about being the biggest show in town.

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While interest from the locals – unlike the brutal humid weather conditions – might have been lukewarm at best – for Moyes and his players, the jaunt proved an essential part of their preparations for what remains Everton’s best Premier League season to date. Having finished 17th the previous campaign on 39 points – despite never being embroiled in a serious relegation battle – some of the early shine had seemingly been taken off Moyes’ fledgling top flight career in the dugout a mere 12 months after he’d secured the first of his three LMA Manager of Year awards as Blues boss.

However, despite losing wonderkid Wayne Rooney, the most gifted homegrown player in the club’s history as the 2004/05 season began, Everton shocked the football world to finish fourth above Champions League-winning neighbours Liverpool, with Moyes duly scooping a second LMA gong. It was the first of half a dozen pre-season trips to presided over during his first spell in charge at Goodison Park with the Blues subsequently going back four summers in a row between 2006-09, the most consistent period of his tenure as they teed up campaigns in which they finished sixth and then a hat-trick of fifth placed finishes.

Other than 2007 when they lost 2-0 in their only match to Major League Soccer newcomers Real Salt Lake at the Rice Eccles Stadium in Utah, each trip was restricted to just two games though. This time around, Everton, who made a hat-trick of US trips post-Moyes under Roberto Martinez, Rafael Benitez and Frank Lampard, have got three fixtures to look forward to.

Although Manchester United have been a shadow of their former selves of late – finishing below the Blues in the table for only the second time during the Premier League era last term – they’re still a global football superpower and nobody can question the level of opposition here as Moyes’ men test themselves against a trio of other English top flight teams ahead of their inaugural campaign at their new Hill Dickinson Stadium home.

Also, with all due respect to the good folks of Baltimore and the ‘Twin Cities’ of Minneapolis-Saint Paul where Lampard’s side went on Everton’s last venture to these shores, the calibre of the metropolises where the games are being played – New York, Chicago and Atlanta – is also elite level.

Chris Beesley is the only member of the UK media reporting on Everton throughout their entire time in the USA for the Premier League Summer Series

Chris Beesley is the only member of the UK media reporting on Everton throughout their entire time in the USA for the Premier League Summer Series

This will be a Blues visit to the USA that’s bigger and better than anything that has ever gone before and as part of their proselytising duties to promote what is already the most watched and most competitive domestic division on the planet, the participants will also be busy promoting the Premier League brand to American audiences as well as sharpening themselves in preparation for another gruelling season ahead.

For Everton, shaping up for a fresh dawn in a post-Goodison Park world – they signed off ahead of flying out with a 2-1 win over Port Vale in a behind closed doors first ever game at Hill Dickinson Stadium – what is hoped will be an exciting new era, lies ahead.

Throughout the coming days, the Blues are taking over the Big Apple and starting with an open training session today – which will be attended for the ECHO by this correspondent, the only UK journalist following the team throughout the entirety of their trip –they will be based at the heart of the US’ largest urban area and little more than a Jordan Pickford punt from the iconic skyscrapers of Manhattan. Stick with us, as pre-seasons go, it promises to be quite the ride.