Returning Everton manager David Moyes spoke to the media on Tuesday afternoon
David Moyes never stopped believing he would return to Everton. “I always had a hope and inkling that someone would get me back”, he reflected. “I wanted to come back.”
There were times when it looked set to happen. Three or four, he thinks. The closest? A pause and then a nod to the events of 2019: “Carlo [Ancelotti] coming in was the closest. I had agreed with Farhad [Moshiri] and Bill [Kenwright] that I was going to be the manager and then Carlo got sacked that night [at Napoli]. They changed their mind the next morning. I had a lot of close calls, but that was the closest.”
Many have since wondered what Everton’s future would have been had events in southern Italy not changed the course of history on the banks of the River Mersey. Perhaps, under Moyes’ careful and knowing stewardship, so many of the issues that brought Everton to the brink of catastrophe would not have unfolded.
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The truth will never be known, but Moyes’ premonition of a second stint proved to be true. Now he is the man tasked with finally putting right the problems that have undermined the club in the years he has been absent.
Moyes arrives back at Everton seeking to prevent a fourth successive relegation fight. The club came through those scares and in his first training session with the players on Monday, he set his squad the challenge of ensuring this is not a season in which the hard work of those previous battles is undone. Having famously christened Everton as ‘The People’s Club’ when he first arrived on Merseyside in 2002, he was asked whether building upon that image was crucial to the salvage job before him.
Moyes responded: “I’ve told the story a million times, but the people in the street support Everton, and that’s what I have to believe. I think at that period it was the right image for the club. Football has maybe moved on now, but at the time it was good for us and helped galvanise things.
“The football club now needs steering in the right direction, putting in a place where you’re not fighting at the bottom of the league all the time. I’ve told the players today. I said to them; ‘I’m not coming here to manage a team at the bottom of the league. I’m coming to manage a team that’s going to be fighting and challenging.’ We might not be in a good position at the moment, but I’m not coming here to take a team at the bottom of the league.
“Part of it is – you players had better turn up. I’ve got no doubt the crowd, the people, Goodison, will all play a part. The players have to play their part now and they have to show they can handle it. Goodison can be a very fierce arena and they have to go on stage and put on a big act. They have to perform.”
That his players will be held accountable for their performances has been a central message during the early days of his return. Moyes spoke with respect for the job Dyche had done during a difficult period in Everton’s history and clearly believes responsibility for the current predicament does not lie solely with his predecessor. Dyche’s opinion is one Moyes values, and the two have spoken since they swapped places.
Moyes said: “I spoke to Dychey on Saturday. I wanted to be clear that I wasn’t sitting here taking his job because Dychey is a friend as well. I think Dychey, to be fair as well, I think he said that he was expecting people to be maybe having a look around. But it was all so tight, the period of the changeover, so Dychey told me, he spoke about the players to me and gave me an indication of – we didn’t go through every single player, but we went through quite a lot of them – and talked about how much he had enjoyed it, but obviously a lot of the restrictions had made it really difficult for Dychey in the last few years. And I have to admire him for keeping the team going because there were a few really difficult points – the points deductions etc, and he got them back.”
For the respect Dyche is due, Moyes has been given the chance to return to Goodison because her last season has unfolded miserably. Already, home supporters have emptied the stands to the sight of Brighton and Hove Albion, Southampton, Bournemouth and Brentford supporters celebrating positive results. At the halfway stage of the campaign, Everton have mustered just three league wins and hover perilously close to the bottom three.
In his opening statement on being confirmed as Dyche’s replacement on Saturday and again this week, Moyes pointed to the power Goodison has to change the club’s fortunes and the privilege of now being able to manage at the Grand OId Lady once again.
It is an honour that, despite the challenge upcoming opponents Aston Villa and Tottenham Hotspur will present, excites him. It is also an opportunity he thought had passed. Given his history with the Blues and the sensitivity and respect he has for fellow managers, he felt it was important he stayed away – even turning down invites to sit in the stands with his dad.
“I wanted to come back and I really wanted to come back to all the games”, Moyes said as he addressed the media at Finch Farm ahead of the visit of Villa on Wednesday. “But I’m a manager who works with managers, wants to help managers and I’m on the League Managers’ Association board, so I didn’t want to sit in the middle of the crowd and have everyone writing that I was there because I wanted the job. I was always mindful that I couldn’t come in case it put any manager under pressure. I’ve tried to avoid doing that.
“I’d had a message asking me to come to one of the games before the end of the season with my dad. I thought it would be brilliant to get back to Goodison before the end and to bring my dad down. You have to remember my family were so embedded in Everton. My kids were young, my dad was drinking with all the boys in the street, and all the other things that go with it. Leaving was terrible because we were really close after 11 years.”
It will be dugout, not the directors box, that he returns to now and the responsibility to deliver a farewell campaign that does Goodison justice is one he feels keenly. He said: “Now I’ve got the chance to manage here again. I’ve just got to make sure that when we walk out of Goodison and lock the door for the final time, we can all walk down to the new stadium in the right position.”
