Managerial Merry-go-round - Part 2 - Moyes Masterclass

 Moyes Masterclass

So with West Ham plumping for Potter, where did that leave David Moyes? I’m sure he wasn’t sat by his phone waiting for a call from West Ham. However, his phone did buzz, and again, it was an old flame of his. Everton Football Club sacked Sean Dyche and couldn’t resist the reunion with former manager, David Moyes. I mean, we can’t blame them, can we? Moyes brought the good times to Goodison Park, and bar a Roberto Martinez first season at Goodison, Moyes’ Everton were the most successful of their Premier League era. He qualified for the Champions League and regularly had them competing for a European place, despite their financial inequality with the former “big four”. Since Moyes’ departure back in 2013, Everton have often flirted with relegation and never been able to get near to the heights enjoyed under Moyes. This, despite, former owner Fashad Moshiri pumping in over £500million in signings and bringing in Champions League winning managers in Carlo Ancelotti and Rafa Benitez. So, yeah. Moyes was the obvious choice for the club. But, is it the right one?

 

Everton, this season, have been uninspiring and dull. They’re often words to describe a Sean Dyche team, however he, alone, is not the reason for this. Dyche has throughout his managerial career has been faced with the challenge of competing with teams that are simply better than his. When taclking this, Dyche opts to make his team sturdy, organised and battle-hardened. His teams would rarely be humiliated, and throughout the course of a season, would just do enough to stave off relegation. This season, however, seemed different. Dyche, himself, not as battle-hardened as he usually is. After a recent 1-0 defeat to Bournemouth, Dyche is understood to have told Everton’s new owners, The Friedkin Group, that he believed he had taken Everton as far as he could. The next day, he told the media that he “had no problem” with the club identifying a potential successor. Seemingly, he had given up. Everton can do that to people. In summary, Dyche did his job. He kept the club up twice, and with point deductions last season too.  The firefighter had put the fires out. The fact that a new fire has re-ignited this season, probably says more about the club than him.

 

Everton has been a hot-seat for managers in the last decade. With ambitions of breaking into the top six, former owner FarhadMoshiri heavily backed the club and spent over £500million on players in only a few summers. The issue was that the club turned over directors of football and managers as quickly as players in that period, leaving the club with an expensive bunch of mishaps, signed by managers playing a whole heap of different formations such as 4-3-3, 3-5-2, 4-2-3-1 and 4-4-2. No coherence, no strategy no clue. There was no synergy from the director of football to the manager, to the players. When Moshiri’s money ran out, after also funding the new stadium that Everton will play in next season, he tried to keep Everton swimming with the big-boys without keeping up financially. Dyche kept them up on two occasions and now with a new board in, the ambition is that Everton will be run with more coherence from the top and this will lead to improvements on the pitch.

 

So, David Moyes is back at Everton. What can we expect from this reunion? Well, a 1-0 defeat to Aston Villa in his first game back is probably par for the course with a squad that severely lacks goalscoring threat. His next game? Picking up a good 3-2 win against Spurs, where Everton were good value for their win. Moyes' third game saw him go to the Amex and come away with a very solid 1-0 win against Brighton. I’m positive about Moyes’ return to Goodison, and that’s not just because of the two wins in three games! Moyes, we know, is a steady pair of hands. Like Dyche, was, to be fair. If you’re letting go of Sean Dyche and need a short-term fix to steady the ship, Moyes is an upgrade. Moyes, has however, also shown an ability to take teams to that next level, particularly West Ham. Qualifying West Ham into Europe for three seasons running and winning the Europa Conference League, giving the Hammers their first ever European trophy. His football, whilst not spectacular, was effective and took West Ham to levels they’ve not seen in their Premier League history. There has to be a belief, now, that he could take Everton to a level that Dyche might have struggled to.

 

Moyes will surely know that to get anywhere near the highs of the past will take time and promises to be a tall order. Given the nature of the Premier League in 2025, clubs such as Bournemouth, Brighton and even Nottingham Forest (dare I say), are well ran and punching above their rate amongst the behemoths that Moyes knows only so well from previous years. Gone are the days where there is a definitive top six, and all clubs below compete for 7^th place. It’s ultra-competitive and treading water one season will almost certainly lead to drowning the next.

 

Both West Ham and Everton share a belief that they belong just under the elite clubs in the Premier League, competing for European places. For both clubs, the road back to where they think they belong will be complicated and difficult. What I’m sure of however, is that both clubs now have a manager the fans can and will get behind, and as we know in football, anything is possible. Believe it’s possible. Believe in romance.