David Moyes has reflected on the mental pressures of management during his time at Sunderland as he makes his Premier League return with Everton.

The former Black Cats, Manchester United and West Ham Ham boss has been appointed as Sean Dyche's successor at Goodison Park, a club where he spent 11 years in the early part of his career. Moyes enjoyed success with Everton, but failed to replicate that with Sunderland and Man United.

He has previously spoken about the pressures scrutiny can bring, with the Scot fined £30,000 by the FA in 2017 for a comment made to BBC reporter Vicki Sparks. Following difficult questions during an interview, Moyes added that she "might get a slap even though you're a woman" and told her to be "careful" next time she visited.

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The exchange was light-hearted, and while Sparks did not make a complaint, the FA launched an investigation and he was later fined.

"That's certainly not the person I am," Moyes said at the time. "I've accepted the mistake. I spoke to the BBC reporter, who accepted my apology."

In a later interview with the Athletic, he reflected on his time at the Stadium of Light, which saw the Black Cats relegated from the Premier League, and the pressures that brought.

“When I look back at it, they had just stayed up with Sam Allardyce,” he said. “But it was by the skin of their teeth. I felt I would be able to do the same.

"And you only have to look at what has happened to Sunderland over the years to see there were bigger troubles there. It’s not just been down to one manager or one incident, so yes I chose wrong. That’s how things can go. It didn’t go so well for me at Sunderland.”

Moyes came under scrutiny after his failure at Sunderland and opened up on the mental battle he had whilst out of work. He added: “Obviously when you’re not working, you find it tough. You always feel the criticism that you get when you leave your jobs, even if a lot of it isn’t quite correct and there’s a lot of untruths in it.

"I think if you’re a real football person, you understand the levels people are at. People who have been professionals like yourself, players or managers in the game, understand that we can all have bad times and things can’t always go right, but I think there was a different level of media attention.

"You find yourself having to battle against things which you don’t think are fair, really. The biggest thing I did was make sure that I tried to go and retrain, relearn, keep myself busy.

“It’s only if you’re in the business that you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about. There’s all the stuff we talk about with mental health nowadays, and I think we’re getting closer to understanding that, yet it’s still OK to discuss a football manager’s job on television or radio and people talk about it as if it’s a jokey matter.

“Did it have an effect? It did. But look, ultimately I’ve got a strong family, a great wife behind me, and we got through it fine. Football is a game. Sometimes it will be bad and you have to live with that, but you see what’s going on.”