Everton's League Cup Struggles and Pressure at Preston

The League Cup has never really loved Everton. The feeling, you suspect, is mutual.

Since the competition’s birth in 1960/61, Everton have reached just two finals. Two. A club of their size, their history, with only a pair of showpiece nights to show for more than six decades of trying. Both ended in defeat: Aston Villa in 1977 – a saga that stretched to three matches and was finally settled in the last minute of extra time – and Liverpool in 1984.

The scars did not fade in the 1990s. They deepened. Portsmouth, Millwall, York, Oxford – names that still trigger a wince among older Evertonians. Nights when top-flight Everton folded against lower-league opposition and trudged out of the cup long before the serious conversations about Wembley began.

Since that Merseyside final in ’84, they have managed just three semi-finals. The most recent, in 2016, still stings: a 3-1 aggregate lead against Manchester City tossed away, another route to silverware slammed shut.

The last decade has brought only flickers of promise. Three quarter-finals, yes, but four exits at the third-round stage in the last five seasons and five shootout defeats in their last eight ties. Penalties have become another recurring nightmare.

So why would this year be any different?

Cameras, pressure and a manager’s misstep

Sky’s cameras will be at Deepdale on Wednesday for Preston v Everton. That alone tells you something. Broadcasters can smell blood. Upsets sell.

Everton fans can sense it too, especially after David Moyes’ latest comments. The manager framed the season as a kind of binary choice: progress in the cups or survival in the Premier League. Many supporters heard that and bristled. Why should a club not in Europe talk as if it cannot handle a few extra midweek games?

The logic from the stands is simple. The squad is not stretched by continental travel. A cup run can build momentum, feed confidence, carry into league form. It does not have to be either/or.

Last season’s evidence hardly helps Moyes. He rotated heavily for a trip to Wolves in this competition, facing a side that had lost five of their opening six games. It looked like an open door to the fourth round. He closed it himself. Everton went out, and with it went a chance to build something early in the campaign.

Now, after an opening-day win over Crystal Palace that briefly lifted the mood, the manager’s words hang over this tie. Another early exit, especially to lower-league opposition, would puncture that feel-good factor in an instant.

Old giants, old ground

Preston v Everton is one of English football’s oldest fixtures. It just doesn’t feel that way anymore.

Both clubs were founder members of the Football League in 1888. Preston set the early standard, sweeping to the first league title and the FA Cup to complete the original domestic Double. They went unbeaten in that league campaign, earning the nickname “Invincibles” – a tag only matched since by Arsenal in 2004.

Preston backed it up with another league title the following season and then three straight runners-up finishes. The trophies slowed after that. The FA Cup in 1938 stands as their last major honour, though they twice finished Division One runners-up in the 1950s and were a familiar top-flight presence until relegation in 1961.

That relegation year was also the last time Everton played a competitive match at Deepdale.

Since then? Just two meetings. Both at Goodison, both 2-0 Everton wins – one in the FA Cup, one in the League Cup.

Preston have flirted with a Premier League return but never quite made it. They reached the play-off final in 2001 and 2005, losing both. The first of those runs came under a young David Moyes, who had spent five years as a player and four as manager at Deepdale, taking them up to Division One – now the Championship – in 2000 and then to that play-off final a year later.

The threads between the clubs do not end there. Preston’s current cup run already carries an Everton imprint: their first-round win over Huddersfield was played at Goodison Park because the pitch at Deepdale was not ready. Since that victory, their league form has stuttered with defeats to Bolton and Wolves.

History, narrative, an ex-hero returning, a TV audience and a top-flight scalp on offer. Deepdale will not be short of edge.

The last time they met

You have to wind the clock back 22 years for the last clash between these sides.

On 27 October 2004, Everton beat Preston 2-0 in a League Cup third-round tie at Goodison. Lee Carsley and Marcus Bent provided the goals, the Toffees moved on, and few imagined they would wait more than two decades for the next meeting.

Now it returns, with far more riding on the mood around Everton than the stage of the competition might suggest.

Moyes’ selection dilemma

Moyes is expected to shuffle his pack again. That phrase alone will make some Everton fans twitch.

Last season’s early exit, built on heavy rotation, remains fresh. This time, Tyler Dibling, Carlos Alcaraz, Beto, Brennan Johnson and Jake O’Brien are all pushing to come into the side. On paper, that sounds like depth, options, variety. On the terraces, it may sound like risk.

The manager insists his intentions are clear.

“This is a question every journalist asks every manager and, in some ways, I think: ‘Are those journalists dead stupid? Do you think none of the managers want to win the cups?’” he said.

“If I asked you: ‘Would it be more important than staying in the Premier League?’ – what would your answer be? Your answer will half answer your own question.

“I can’t think of any manager who wouldn’t want a good run in a cup competition.”

The words are blunt, but the reaction has been sharper. Many Everton supporters feel the subtext – that the league comes first by a distance – has been used too often as an excuse for meek cup exits.

Now, the interpretation of those comments has done something Moyes did not intend: it has cranked up the pressure. Lose at Preston, and it will not be written off as a bump in a long season. It will be seen as another chapter in a long, unhappy League Cup story.

Everton arrive with history against them, cameras on them and a manager under scrutiny. Deepdale may not decide their season, but it will say plenty about what kind of season this is going to be.