Everton’s Hill Dickinson Stadium, five days before the Premier League opener against Crystal Palace.
Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall is on stage at an event hosted by podcast and media company Men in Blazers, candidly discussing the lessons learned from last season — and how a first qualification for European football since the 2017-18 season agonisingly slipped from their grasp.
The club’s chief executive Angus Kinnear has since said that campaign is viewed as a “failure” by American owners The Friedkin Group in an interview with BBC Radio Merseyside. And many of those involved have spent the summer trying to understand what happened.
“I had a lot of time to think about it,” Dewsbury-Hall says. “(There were) a lot of lessons learned. The main one is never get complacent till the final whistle of the final game.
“Put in the same position again, I don’t think that we’ll be making that mistake.”
Listen to Dewsbury-Hall and you get the sense of a side ready to right some wrongs, but Everton’s manager David Moyes struck an altogether more cautious tone in a chat with Sky Sports, his first with any media this summer.
“We’ve got a long way to go and want to do an awful lot more (in the transfer market),” the Scot said.
So, how ready are Everton for the new season?
The Athletic has followed them at home, in Germany and Scotland, speaking to key figures to get a sense of how they are shaping up.
“It’s been one of the longest pre-seasons, because it usually takes maybe 10-14 days of hard sessions,” left-back Vitalii Mykolenko says of the Premier League returning one week later than usual after this summer’s World Cup.
“It’s already the fourth week of training. But it’s good for us. It’s tough, but there is nothing silly. Everything is for a purpose.”
The Ukrainian was speaking to The Athletic from the team’s Oschberghof training base in Germany’s Black Forest. The setting is lavish but remote, which is part of its appeal for clubs such as Everton.
Oschberghof is an hour from Switzerland’s Zurich Airport, boasts three renowned golf courses, and players are able to cycle down the hill to use the two pristine pitches provided by local club SV Aasen. Serie A champions Inter were visitors in July, while Spain used it ahead of their victorious 2024 European Championship campaign.
Arriving for training on day one at our base in southern Germany! 🚴♂️🇩🇪 pic.twitter.com/yyWNs4HOff
— Everton (@Everton) August 3, 2026
Like last summer, Everton started pre-season in the Scottish coastal town of St Andrews, doing double or even triple sessions, including team runs on the beach and in the town, to work on their base fitness.
It has been a very different summer to the one that preceded it out of design. Everton are aware of the commercial benefits of touring the U.S., as they did last year, but there are always compromises on those trips — valuable days lost to media commitments and travelling.
This has been a much more typical Moyes pre-season, with players quickly getting up to speed and the emphasis on making sure the squad are given valuable playing time ahead of the new campaign.
There have been changes behind the scenes. Dave Reddington has joined permanently from AFC Wimbledon as a set-piece coach, a role that had been vacant since Charlie Adam’s summer 2025 departure, following a successful ‘trial’ at the end of last season.
That was considered an essential appointment given the importance of set pieces in the Premier League in recent seasons, with the process led by Moyes.
Everton’s head of sports science Jack Nayler left, with Moyes appointing former West Ham United colleague Nick Davies at the end of last season. Daniel Ransom, who worked with technical director Nick Cox at Manchester United, has been brought in as the club’s first head of performance lifestyle, a role that focuses on wellbeing, psychology and helping players achieve peak performance.
Five signings have been made, with midfielders Hayden Hackney and Christian Norgaard identified for their leadership and ability to play through the lines, something that has been a priority this summer. Filling the leadership void left by club captain Seamus Coleman’s departure has also been at the forefront of key figures’ minds.
Hackney, who has spent much of pre-season at the base of midfield in a 4-1-4-1, has been tasked by Moyes with dropping deep to pick up the ball from the defence and overloading the opposition there and when he breaks forward.
While the versatile Merlin Rohl has impressed as a makeshift right-back in pre-season, and has spent periods training there, a new signing in that position is considered a priority before the September 1 deadline.
Other changes are more subtle. “The gaffer changed a lot (when he came in),” Mykolenko says. “But he has quite a similar plan (now) as far as I can see. Maybe just longer sessions.”
There is frustration at how last season panned out. Coaches Billy McKinlay and Leighton Baines are tasked with analysing performances and feeding back to Moyes, before he decides how to proceed.
The cheap concession of a quick goal to Erling Haaland, shortly after Everton went 3-1 up against Manchester City in May, is still seen as one of several key moments, with Moyes’ side squandering two key points that night.
“The first two parts of the season, we did well,” Mykolenko says. “But the last seven games, I don’t know what happened.
“(We conceded) some silly goals at the end of the games. We were in a situation where we were safe, had no pressure. We could have finished in Europe.
Everton were frustrated with how last season ended (Chris Brunskill/Fantasista/Getty Images)
“You have to switch on until the end. Speak with your team-mates, be together. This is the most important.
“But I will not sit in my room and cry about it. It’s a good (learning) experience to have for the future.”
There were some moments for down-time and team bonding over the summer.
In Germany, a group led by Jarrad Branthwaite and Nathan Patterson hit the golf course. Mykolenko and midfielder Carlos Alcaraz played padel, while ping-pong tables and a darts board were installed at the hotel. Evenings were spent playing the game Wolf, which is similar to the television show The Traitors and became a staple of England’s Euro 2024 thanks to players such as Jude Bellingham and Trent Alexander-Arnold.
First-team chefs Tom Kenton and Neil Bradbury laid on a team barbecue one evening and there were trips to a local hut on site for traditional German food, including schnitzel, along with an Italian restaurant where players could choose from one of three options pre-selected by Kenton and Bradbury.
Due to the heat, which at times rose to more than 30C (86F), players were given high-carb slushies to help their recovery between sessions. Small tubs of ice cream were available on one night of the trip to aid their recovery.
Kenton and Bradbury, who worked with England at the World Cup, liaise with hotel chefs far in advance of trips, as well as head of nutrition Stephen Long. Ingredients are sourced locally by agents working for the club and hotels, but Bradbury also took produce to Germany.
Sessions are often longer and more intense than in the regular season, so there is an emphasis on refuelling. Kenton and Bradbury, who travel everywhere with the team, monitor eating habits with Long. Kenton used to challenge players to eat 500 grams of pasta, while rice pudding is a common dessert the night before matches.
“The big work is done the day before (a game),” he says. “We always have a live pasta station. And we keep that the same everywhere we go as it’s so important that the players have familiarity.
“We have a few odd pasta combinations, and we name them after that person. They’re all very similar. The favourite one still is the ‘Doucs’ (after Abdoulaye Doucoure’s time at the club from 2020-2025). It’s a bechamel sauce, a Cajun spice, pesto, chicken, and a small bit of cheese.
Abdoulaye Doucoure’s influence is still felt in Everton’s pasta dishes (Alex Dodd – CameraSport via Getty Images)
“We’ve got lads who never played with him asking for it. Even the guys from England love that as well. Jack Grealish had the ‘Coleman’, and that was basically a ‘Doucs’, but with some chorizo.
“On the day, it’s topping up energy and glycogen levels. If it’s an evening kick-off, what you’ll eat that morning will help you out. But if it’s a 3 o’clock midday kick-off, what you’re eating on the day is not going to do very much.”
Most players stick to the same routine no matter the kick-off time. And the chefs have learned every order by heart.
“Jordan (Pickford) has his same pre-match meal no matter what,” Kenton says. “Whether it’s early or late, he’ll still have Weetabix, salmon and scrambled egg on toast. Merlin (Rohl) is going to have bolognese for breakfast.”
Post-match food often depends on the result.
“They sit there and punish themselves if we lose,” says Kenton. “But when we win, they’ll eat it all.
“It’s making them eat something and stuff that you can just grab there. Your post-match food is a bit of controlled junk food, something like a lean burger with some bread, to get carbs into the system. It starts their recovery off.”
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Pre-season has been intense, and the sense in camp is that there is scope for tangible growth this campaign.
“We can improve in all areas,” says Mykolenko.
“I would love to play more interesting football this season. Maybe some people will say it wasn’t good enough, but for the first 30 games, we played interesting football and people enjoyed it.
“Hopefully people will want to watch this football. Because sometimes football can be boring and you don’t want to watch it.”
The 27-year-old, who signed a new long-term contract in June, believes the summer signings will help.
“Merlin is in very good form,” he says. “He can play everywhere, it’s incredible.
“Tyrique (George, who joined permanently from Chelsea for £18million after his loan) didn’t play a lot last season, but he came off the bench and he improved our team. When he goes inside, he can finish in the top corner. He’s been good this summer and hopefully will improve this season.”
He highlights Hackney, meanwhile, as the “best player in the Championship last season” and someone he hopes can also “make an impact”.
Hayden Hackney has been tasked with bringing the ball forward from deep (Christian Kaspar-Bartke/Getty Images)
George is one of a host of young players to have caught the eye. The 19-year-old midfielder Harrison Armstrong has advanced his claim for more regular minutes this summer, while there is a belief that striker Thierno Barry and winger Tyler Dibling are starting to properly adapt after their arrivals last summer.
Left-back Adam Aznou is another to have impressed in camp.
“We’re quite different,” Mykolenko says. “I’m more defensive and without the dribbling skills. He’s less physically strong but good on the ball and I like it.
“He came from Spain and didn’t play a lot. But I can see he’s improving, from last summer to this summer.
“He’s young. He needs some confidence. Hopefully he will help us.”
Soon we will see if they are ready. The final game, a 1-1 draw against Lille, saw a positive Everton performance, but they could not turn their dominance into more goals. They recorded wins against Dundee (4-0), Hamburg (2-1) and Newcastle United (3-1), losing to Stoke City (1-0) and Stuttgart (3-1). They also drew 0-0 away at Championship side Bolton Wanderers.
While the performances were broadly positive — and it is hard to read too much into pre-season — there are gaps that need to be filled with the new campaign just days away.
“We’re super excited, super positive,” Dewsbury-Hall said at the Men In Blazers event. “The lads have come back very sharp. We’re bubbling along nicely.
“It’s very competitive. There’s a lot of good players and that’s what you want in a squad. I’m quite confident.”