Tyler Dibling was the most expensive signing for Everton this summer, arriving from Southampton for £35 million.
One of English football’s most highly rated prospects, the teenager has struggled for game time and has played just 62 minutes of Premier League football all season. In contrast, he made 33 top-flight appearances for the Saints last season before they got relegated.
David Moyes believes that Dibling is finding it difficult to break into the first team given the form of Jack Grealish and Iliman Ndiaye ahead of him.
“At the moment, he’s got Ili Ndiaye and Jack Grealish in front of him, so that’s probably the reason why he’s finding it difficult to break into the first team,” Moyes said in the pre-match press conference before facing Fulham.
“We want him to up his levels, up his training.
“When I first came here, Leighton Baines, John Stones, Joleon Lescott, you could go on… they all had to sit and wait for their time and the right moments to find their way into the team, that’s the way it is.
“For Tyler at the moment, he’ll have to do that as well.”
Dibling has made only four appearances in the league this season, all of them from the bench. He also featured in two games in the EFL Cup before Everton’s run came to an end against Wolverhampton Wanderers.
Another major talking point concerning the Everton frontline is the strikers’ efficiency, or lack thereof. Both Beto and Thierno Barry have disappointed massively so far this season. They have scored one goal between them after 10 matches.
Barry was guilty of missing a sitter against Sunderland in the last game and the French U21 international, another of Everton’s summer signings, is still searching for his first goal in a royal blue shirt. Beto, meanwhile, is struggling to replicate the form he showed in the second half of last season when Moyes first took over.
“I think we’re all wanting our centre-forwards to score goals,” Moyes admitted.
“I think when I came in last season, nobody expected Beto to score any goals but Beto did fantastically well and probably helped make sure we were a Premier League team by his goals and the opportunities that he made in the second half of last season.
“So, we’re not going to give up on them right away, but we’re putting them under pressure to score goals as well.
“We need to give them a bit of confidence, a bit of belief, but they have to give something back as well, they have to show what they can do to get the jersey.”
Reader Comments (43)
Note: the following content is not moderated or vetted by the site owners at the time of submission. Comments are the responsibility of the poster. Disclaimer ()
Peter Hodgson
1 Posted
07/11/2025 at
16:04:28
Stubborn or what!
Kevin Naylor
2 Posted
07/11/2025 at
16:06:32
Gaslighting the fans imo.
Mike Keating
3 Posted
07/11/2025 at
16:16:03
“At the moment, hes got Ili Ndiaye and Jack Grealish in front of him, so thats probably the reason why hes finding it difficult to break into the first team,”
Not to mention McNiel!
Dale Self
4 Posted
07/11/2025 at
16:38:40
What a breath of fresh air after Dyche, eh?
Is Tyler on the grass?!?
Joe McMahon
5 Posted
07/11/2025 at
16:44:36
Begs the question: Why did we sign him? No one else was interested at that price. He probably regrets leaving the south coast to (not) play for Moyes.
In other news, it’s nice of the BBC to state Joey Barton now found guilty has played for Everton. I did report on X, but it has been updated.
Conor McCourt
6 Posted
07/11/2025 at
17:02:51
Yes, Stones and Barkley had to wait their chance when the time was right, yep, when you’d gone.
What a badge of honour to have been held back along with so many others.
I really wouldn’t have liked to imagine what Dibling has been like in training over the last 10 days since he was recently tearing it up beforehand.
Do you smell something… yep, bullshit.
Minor point: Tyler ain’t confined to playing wide right, if that’s your current excuse.
Andrew Merrick
7 Posted
07/11/2025 at
17:19:59
Davey does not budge. Variation, rotation, motivation, come on, there has to be a few permutations…
So Tyler has to wait for an injury or until Illy jets off…
McNeil, not really in the plans any more..
Tim and Merlin together maybe, and Garner to right-back?
Trying to find a new formula, hard this maths…
Conor McCourt
8 Posted
07/11/2025 at
17:31:18
Lescott had to wait 2 games before starting and had already played similar minutes as a sub in those two than Tyler has managed in the Premier League up until now.
Andy Crooks
9 Posted
07/11/2025 at
18:27:19
Moyes Mk 2 is just the pits in self-serving awfulness.
He really is utterly appalling.
Jerome Shields
10 Posted
07/11/2025 at
18:34:20
Kevin #2,
Never a truer work spoken. Moyes is bullshiting us.
Andy #9,
We are being fed sop by Moyes. Next thing he will try the People’s Club crap. He is so barefaced it is unbelievable.
Tom Bowers
11 Posted
07/11/2025 at
18:48:05
As I keep saying, Moyes is too narrow-minded to change his team selection and his strategies. We got lucky in the games that we won, dodging bullets all over the place.
Moyes is starting to prove once again why he has failed everwhere he has been.
Fulham have a good record on the road against Everton so we have to hope that will change tomorrow but it may take more of the magic from Ndiaye or Grealish to get control of the game before Smith-Rowe or Iwobi do.
Robert Tressell
12 Posted
07/11/2025 at
18:51:20
Feel for Dibling.
This is not presumably what he was expecting when he joined.
Mike Allison
13 Posted
07/11/2025 at
18:53:53
You’re allowed to make substitutions, though, aren’t you?
All of our attacking options should be getting game time; instead, we’re running some into the ground so that they cramp up while others atrophy on the bench.
Basic, simple squad management not being done properly.
Derek Taylor
14 Posted
07/11/2025 at
19:16:54
How short the memories of so many Evertonians — Davey was being lauded just a few months ago!
But let’s just pray that his belief in B&B is about to be rewarded!
Terry McLavey
15 Posted
07/11/2025 at
19:53:55
We need a 21st Century manager…
You could play Dibling as a striker, he couldn’t do any worse than the two antidotes to the striking position we have at the moment!
Stuart Sharp
16 Posted
07/11/2025 at
19:59:45
You’re not wrong, Derek. I mean, all fans are fickle, not just Evertonians, but the acid on here is incredible… especially for a guy who has done plenty of good for our club.
The Sunderland game was infuriating and few would disagree Moyes should take a lot of the blame, but I’ve seen some staggering hatred on here in the last few days.
I’m neither a lover nor a hater. I’m both grateful and frustrated. Despite what some posters suggest, it’s possible to be uncomfortable with that bile without being a ‘fan boy’.
David Cooper
17 Posted
07/11/2025 at
20:24:05
Moyes this morning reminded us how important Beto’s goals were last season. Now his goals have dried up.
One reason is quite clear, our first and sometimes only avenue of attack is to get the ball wide to Grealish, he hangs onto the ball, takes it forwards or back in an attempt to cross the ball.
In our last 10 games last season, when we were looking relegation initially, our main route of attack was through the middle and Beto showed his prowess of running onto through balls, holding off the defender with his physique and slotting past the goalie. As far as I can remember this season he has only had a couple of opportunities.
Maybe Moyes should be more aware of this?
Colin Glassar
18 Posted
07/11/2025 at
21:09:47
Moyes is a dinosaur, plain and simple.
Mike Gaynes
19 Posted
07/11/2025 at
21:17:06
Colin, the dinosaurs ruled the earth for 165 million years and were never relegated.
Andrew Merrick
20 Posted
07/11/2025 at
21:53:15
Where did you research that, Mike?
I’m pretty sure they lost out in the end game?
Colin Glassar
21 Posted
07/11/2025 at
22:39:58
They became extinct, Mike.
Their time ran out…
Steve Brown
22 Posted
08/11/2025 at
04:28:09
Management by numbers:
1) Sign a young player.
2) Park him on the bench for 6 months.
3) Then play him out of position for 1 game.
4) Drop him because he hasn’t played well.
5) Sigh at the next press conference that young players have to take their chance.
6) Select the 34-year-old you dropped due to terrible displays for the last 6 months.
7) Sell the young player at a loss for not fulfilling his potential.
8) And repeat.
Bob Parrington
23 Posted
08/11/2025 at
07:07:35
If young Dibling is not a starter against Fulham, I hope he will be a sub and is given at least 30 minutes.
Steve, yes, there are times to have the balls as a manager and to take some chances. 5-15 minutes now and then is absolutely no good.
Daniel A Johnson
24 Posted
08/11/2025 at
07:40:10
In the last presser, it was Giulia Bould who had the balls to ask about Barry and Dibling and why he’s not playing.
It was fun watching Moyes bristle and start to get prickly, his eyes bulging. The body language starting to get defensive.
The rest of the press gang are pathetic sycophants: “How good is Jack?”, “Isn’t Keane doing well?” and “When is Patterson back?” are not the questions that should be asked.
So well done, Giulia, for asking the big-headed Moyes what we really want to know.
Barry Williams
25 Posted
08/11/2025 at
07:42:39
Dinosaurs are still alive and well — we call them birds these days — descended from theropods!
I think Moyes did a wonderful job last season — a truly magnificent job. But for me — and others — he is just not getting the full potential out of the players available to him.
Again, Moyes Mk 1 did a decent job, but I always maintained he should have done better with the players he had available — albeit that he did well assembling them.
The same here — what is the point of a decent squad if the competition for places isn’t what it should be? There is a lot of room for flexibility within the current squad — a few tweaks here and there would not go amiss.
That said — get too succesful and Masters and Co will have something to say about it. Just cos you ain’t paranoid, doesn’t mean they ain’t watching you — especially in Brtiain 2025!
Ian Bennett
26 Posted
08/11/2025 at
08:34:57
Two factors at play.
The dead cat bounce of the new manager. They all come into Everton, improve things for a period, and then the opposition work it out. Double mark Grealish and let O’Brien have the ball. The club has to get through this. It can’t continually sack managers, when the underlying issue is the quality on the pitch.
Underneath is the same poor players that have cost other managers their jobs, or have been in relegation fights. It’s not like Moyes came into a Top 4 gig, with Top 4 players.
The squad lacks quality. Yes, he’s spent money, but the only obvious player that is impacting the XI is a loan player in Grealish.
The squad is in transition. He’s still playing a squad of Gana, Keane, on a regular basis, and shoe-horning a centre-back at right-back, no proper right winger, a bang-average midfield, and strikers that are starved of service — but have issues in themselves.
We have gaps at right-wing, centre-midfield, right-back, left-back, centre-forward, and centre-back of genuine quality, that are fit and do it in the here and now.
Sooner or later, he’s just going to have to play his best technical footballers. Rohl, Barry and Dibling need to be in that conversation.
On paper that’s probably the below. But even that has no right-back, a left-back that gets a nose bleed over the halfway line, and a midfield that could cough up possession in dangerous areas, a side that still doesn’t score, and would be vulnerable at set plays.
We are miles away from being decent.
Pickford
Garner Tarkowski Branthwaite Mykolenko
Rohl Dewesbury-Hall
Dibling Ndiaye Grealish
Barry
Martin Farrington
27 Posted
08/11/2025 at
08:48:20
“I think when I came in last season, nobody expected Beto to score any goals”
So why was he bought? Great philosophy if you are a retarded football club.
“They have to show what they can do to get the jersey.” Not score goals, one assumes.
I am not a fan of our manager. But I gave him credit for a competent job last season. However, preseason, poor position filling with player purchases, and how he has returned to form, I cannot give him an ounce of credit.
Poor tactics, player criticisms, lack of support, clueless in-game decisions, baffling substitutions and lousy management overall. His time had expired after he left and the resurrected version should have been replaced at the end of last season.
Now we have a hard, cold, annoying and frustrating, long, dark winter ahead. I can’t see his petrified (as in turned to a stony substance) thinking bringing anything else.
Frank Sheppard
28 Posted
08/11/2025 at
08:51:38
Following Post #26 above, it would be great if we started today as:
Pickford
Garner Tarkowski Keane Mykolenko
Rohl Dewsbury-Hall
Dibling Ndiaye Grealish
Barry
Robert Tressell
29 Posted
08/11/2025 at
09:00:43
Ian # 26, you’re right — a lot of this is resolved by another round of spending.
Two new full-backs: pretty obvious this is killing us right now.
A versatile and fast winger or forward like, say, Gakpo who can play wide or through the middle. Or ideally two of these.
I do think Moyes could be doing better with what he’s got (and he may be responsible for why we’ve got too).
But we are crying out for better players and more players.
Joe McMahon
30 Posted
08/11/2025 at
09:13:00
Frank,
As my late mother would say, “There’s more chance of hell freezing over”.
Ernie Baywood
31 Posted
08/11/2025 at
09:15:15
Every alternative formation has someone shoe-horned into a position that isn’t exactly their typical role.
My own version is that Alcaraz up front should be tried. And I’d be prepared to try almost anything that gets Mykolenko out of the side.
It’s kind of hard to argue that anyone’s selection is wrong. But I guess it does show the problem Moyes has. We don’t have a viable option for every position. Neither current full-back would be first choice for most Premier League teams. Nor would at least one midfielder or any of our striking options.
Where I do think many are wrong is this statement that Moyes is a negative, defensive manager. There must be some incredibly short memories around. This team is playing much better football than it did before. It’s not champagne stuff but it does pass for football. On occasion, it’s been very good.
However, he is conservative. Very conservative. Hence the player he shoe-horns into an unfamiliar position is a big fast, primarily defensively minded full-back. That sits better with him than adding someone who is more of a wing-back, or getting another creative player in the midfield.
Rob Dolby
32 Posted
08/11/2025 at
09:35:22
No matter what formation or players are selected, it is glaringly obvious that we don’t have enough goals in the team.
Go out and buy 2 of the best full-backs in world football, buy the fastest centre-backs to play further up field to supply chances to our toothless forwards and midfield!
Ndiaye will be our top scorer with less than 10 and, if given a chance, Alcaraz maybe gets 6 or 7.
He has to find goals to climb the table and stay away from relegation. At some point, his hand will be forced and we may see Dibling and Alcaraz on the pitch.
Iain Johnston
33 Posted
08/11/2025 at
09:38:32
I’d not play either Beto or Barry, what’s the point?
For me, Ndaiye should be up there with Grealish and Dibling either side of him with Dewsbury-Hall, Rohl & Garner behind them. At least they’d stop the pointless incessant crossing direct to the opposition’s defenders or goalie.
Moyes has reverted to his default setting of an isolated, lonely forward and playing not to lose.
Andy Walker
34 Posted
08/11/2025 at
09:54:30
The article state “Dibling has made only four appearances in the league this season, all of them from the bench”.
This is incorrect Dibling started against Palace. He was subbed at half time as he was completely anonymous.
Tony Abrahams
35 Posted
08/11/2025 at
09:57:48
I’m sure you could find goals in this squad, Rob. I personally think we have got some very good attacking players, but our formation seems very rigid, because the fullbacks don’t really offer much in attack.
We all have our own opinions, but the most important thing is how the manager can change this?
Rob Dolby
36 Posted
08/11/2025 at
10:46:51
Tony @35,
Yep maybe so, I think we have some very good defensive minded footballers but getting goals from them is the art of management I suppose.
First time around, Moyes built a strong team that had ability but just lacked a Lukaku or a bit more expansive play to suit the players available.
Looking back, we had: Coleman and Baines as attacking full-backs; Jagielka, Distin, Lescott with pace at the back; Arteta, Piennar, Cahill, and Osman in midfield; Yakubu and Johnson all had a goal in them; Carsley being the destroyer.
How did that team not win anything?
Credit to Moyes for building the team but he is also responsible for them and us not winning a trophy.
Brian Harrison
38 Posted
08/11/2025 at
10:48:49
The problem is, at present, Dibling doesn’t warrant a start. So far, when he has come on the pitch, he has looked way out of his depth. He has been at the club long enough to have got his fitness levels up and his overall performances, but clearly he hasn’t done enough to convince the manager to pick him.
He played under Lee Carsley recently for the young England team and was withdrawn after 69 minutes, so another manager not convinced by his performance. When he has come on in games, he has largely been anonymous and hasn’t looked at all at ease at this level.
Moyes has mentioned his fitness levels… surely the time he has been here, he should be at the level required.
I know when he was younger, he went to Chelsea, got homesick, and went back to Southampton, so maybe he struggles to settle in a new environment.
He is still very young and has got time to show us what he is about… But, in a few weeks, Ndaiye is off to the Afcon tournament and he needs to be ready to take over from him; at present, I don’t think Moyes could risk him.
Michael Bennet
39 Posted
08/11/2025 at
10:59:28
You have hit the nail on the head, Brian… As much as Moyes is doing my head in at the minute, he must be pissed off with him at this time because he is getting the flack for it.
When I heard about the Chelsea situation, I thought it was a bit of a red flag,.. but what were the scouts looking at? Maybe just a few YouTube clips — just like I did.
Tony Abrahams
40 Posted
08/11/2025 at
12:14:02
So the problem is Dibling? We have won one game in eight and the problem is a kid who isnt playing?
Rob Dolby
41 Posted
08/11/2025 at
12:15:11
Brian 38
Dibling looked lost against Palace and so did half of the team who are keeping their place week after week.
Obrien had a nightmare against West ham and even with the club captain on the bench fully fit he is keeping the shirt.
I can’t remember the last time kdh had a good game but he keeps the shirt.
We have competition for places for the first time in a while. Moyes needs to start using them more. Dibling and Alcaraz might benefit for 30 mins rather than the 5 they are being used for now.
Jimmy Carr
42 Posted
08/11/2025 at
12:23:47
It was good to hear the question about Dibling at the press conference, Moyes stonewalled it, but considering his preference for a solid defence at all times, are we surprised?
I don’t think any of us really know what’s going on with his thinking regarding the starting eleven, but current form suggests he will be forced to make a change eventually. I suspect he’s desperately hoping he doesn’t have to, which considering the options he now has in the squad, is perplexing.
Talk of a disconnect with certain players, with the recruitment team, is all guesswork. But it’s strange to me that he’s not trying different ideas/players/formations to get a result. He’s always been conservative, but points on the board are king, and we’re not getting any.
Sean Mitchell
43 Posted
08/11/2025 at
13:16:23
Moyes is clearly pissing everyone off at the moment.
Fans have a right to be fed up.
Dibling and Barry clearly need an arm around them.
Over to you, Seamus.
Dibling can only improve if hes played, and played in his proper position. His confidence was probably destroyed seeing McNeil picked instead as sub. Not to mention Alcaraz.
Square pegs, etc.
Are half of these players even ones Moyes chose?
If he changes things today and it results in a win, we go into another shit fest break feeling more upbeat.
That involves dropping his favourites who arent playing well.
Grow a pair and change it.
I fancy us today regardless. Its due.
I dont care how nice or ugly is it today.
We just need to make sure one of their players whos never scored or is on a draught is marked out of the game.
We know whatll happen.
Dampen this negativity for a fortnight at least.
Over to you, Moyes.
COYB.
Robert Tressell
44 Posted
08/11/2025 at
14:05:12
Rob # 36, how did that team not win anything?
I think the answer is this:
(a) we didn’t have all of those players at the same time
(b) we were usually carrying some poor players (often as part of the usual First XI, often because of lack of squad depth)
(c) we played low risk football to get us up the table and stop us sliding back down (with higher risk can come higher reward, but can also see you tumbling down the table as per Bielsa and many, many others)
(d) there were always 6 much better resourced clubs at least dominating (who had better players and more of them) the silverware and league positions and an otherwise competitive league.
How to get rid of these ads and support TW
© ToffeeWeb
