Seamus Coleman on Everton, David Moyes, and Wanting More

Seamus Coleman has always been a calm and collected head when it comes to speaking to the media about Everton, so when he starts questioning decisions made by the club, you know it has been bad. 

Five months on from his emotional farewell, Coleman still talks like he's sat in the Finch Farm canteen. He's someone who cares about this place more than most, and that's exactly why his latest comments land as hard as they do.

The former skipper has opened up on what years of relegation scraps have done to the collective mindset at Everton, and he doesn't exclude himself from it one bit.

"You get scarred that much from the relegation battles that you can fall into a place of: 'Oh, I just want to be okay'. That's not the right answer for the size of Everton Football Club.

"But it's difficult, because the manager's come in, and you see it from your side, I see it from mine, but he stabilised a group inside that was in a bad place. Then in the summer, who sells a striker before you get one in?"

That last line is the one that sticks out. Beto was sold to Fiorentina for around £17m on deadline day, leaving Thierno Barry as the only recognised senior centre-forward in the building. Everton spent the closing hours of the window chasing a replacement, but none arrived.

And Coleman, a man who has rarely criticised the club publicly in nearly two decades, clearly can't get his head around it.

"We can all have frustrations, and the performances probably weren't where they should be, but you can't even take off your striker, who might be tired from running around, to replace him with another one, because you don't have one. We're talking about a Premier League-level club.

"I just don't understand how that can happen. But the gaffer [Moyes] will work hard, he'll get the job done and all the rest. I just think, from being stung so many times, I'm not saying this is right, but it's nearly where my mindset has shifted to over the last few years."

Coleman is careful to separate David Moyes from the decision-making above him, and that's fair. Moyes walked into a dressing room that was on its knees and steadied it. 

But stability only takes you so far. If you want to kick on, the squad has to grow, and this summer it arguably went backwards in the final third.

"It's like, I just want us to be okay, get a few more bodies in January, and then Europe would be great, and whatever happens from there is another thing but we didn't bring in loads of quality attacking players. Iliman Ndiaye left, wasn't really replaced, and then Beto left and wasn't really replaced."

Ndiaye was the one player in this side who could make something out of nothing. Beto, for all his flaws, gave Moyes a different option off the bench. Both have gone, and the gaps are still there for everyone to see.

Coleman's comments show honesty in both directions. He admits his own expectations have been dragged down by years of firefighting, but he refuses to tell supporters to lower theirs.

"You can't blame the Everton fans as well for wanting better. I talked about myself there, about feeling in that safe zone, but it's been so long. Every other club has had something, some kind of success or something, some cup final or whatever.

"It's been so long that I understand the fans, they are a group of fans there that remember good times, successful times, so you don't want to stop their ambition either. From a fanbase, you want that, but of course, you've got to be careful as well."

Plenty of supporters slipped into that 'just stay up' mentality after points deductions, last-day escapes, and seasons spent looking over our shoulders. Survival became the trophy, which isn't normal, and it shouldn't become normal at a new stadium under new owners.

Some will say Coleman is one voice, and he's no longer in the building. But few people have earned the right to speak on this club as he has. When the most loyal servant of the modern era is asking how a Premier League club ends a window with one senior striker, those in charge should be asking themselves the same question.

January can't come soon enough. Moyes needs bodies. Being 'okay' might be what the scar tissue tells us to accept, but as Coleman says himself, it isn't the right answer for Everton.