“A different David Moyes joining a different Everton.”
So ran the opening pitch when the former manager made his emotional return to Goodison Park in January, with the club one point above the relegation zone having scored in only two of their preceding 10 fixtures.
“Maybe I’m not having to fight the world all the time now, which when you first come in you feel as if you need to,” Moyes would later elaborate.
“But don’t take my calmness as meaning I’m not passionate.”
That caveat will resonate with the Gwladys Street because for all the slight tweaks – not least to the popular fans chant which has replaced the reference about Moyes’ red hair to grey – a reassuring familiarity lies at the heart of a revival which Everton hope will absorb a Merseyside derby victory on Wednesday night.
Moyes simply fits the club better than the eight men who succeeded him in the 12 years since his exit in 2013.
They worked their way through just about every modern coaching profile, from Pep Guardiola disciple Roberto Martínez, ‘Hollywood’ manager Ronald Koeman, club builder Marco Silva, Real Madrid legend Carlo Ancelotti and old-school Charles Hughes devotees Sam Allardyce and Sean Dyche.
Whatever their preconceptions of what it would be like managing Everton, all of them needed a crash course to grasp it fully.
Moyes strode back in needing no such education. He is the embodiment of what the club aspires to be: tough, uncompromisingly hard-working, but ceaselessly striving to add those touches of flair and class to elevate the club to the highest level. Everton often thrive as an underdog, but there is no love for that reputation. In Moyes they have a manager desperate to shrug it off to make European qualification the norm.
Stylistically, those working closely with Moyes have long-considered him misunderstood, largely because of his resistance to be pigeon-holed according to coaching fashions.
Often pressed to define his preferred ‘philosophy’, Moyes greets that question with suspicion.
“My philosophy is to win football matches,” is a standard reply which has grown with authority.
It would have been easier for Moyes to embrace being perceived as Mourinho-esque, or to have more recently dropped in the occasional reference to hybrid full-backs and false nines to appease those who seem determined to present him as someone he has never wished to be. The most apt description in 2025 is a manager comfortable in his own skin, taking or leaving whatever approval is forthcoming without proactively seeking it.
The most successful Moyes teams are multi-dimensional. Some say he is more ...
