Moyes guarantee

It’s taken until the second half of the campaign, but Everton are finally producing the kind of football that Goodison Park deserves for her historic final season. Unfortunately, under Dyche, the Blues were getting neither the displays nor the results fitting of such a time with David Moyes’ predecessor complaining: “One of the hardest things to manage is when fans say, ‘why are you not giving us the season we want in the last season in the Grand Old Lady?’.”

In contrast, the 61-year-old who knows exactly what it takes to lift this senior citizen of stadia from her slumber and galvanise her back into a fearsome battleaxe, has not shied away from the power of the home fans and proclaimed in his programme notes: “Last time we were here against Tottenham, people have told me that for 45 minutes Goodison felt like a very different place to how it has been.

“We are not here for too much longer now and I think it's important that we all play our part in the next few months. Some weeks it will be enough, other weeks it may not be, but we will guarantee we will do everything we can to give this great stadium the send off it deserves.”

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Speaking to this correspondent in the ECHO’s Goodison Park: My Home series back in September, the Scot recalled how he had actively used that platform to try and get his message across to the supporters about using them to the team’s advantage and while he recently acknowledged it’s a different David Moyes coming back to a different Everton, he also remarked today: “one thing that hasn't changed is the loyalty, the passion and the commitment of our supporters.”

When Moyes lifted the UEFA Europa Conference League with West Ham United in 2023, one of the most heart-warming images was the one of him alongside his then 87-year-old father, David senior, wearing his son’s winners’ medal around his neck. On taking the Everton job for a second time, Moyes junior admitted he’d wanted to return to games at Goodison with his dad for a long time so if Goodison is ‘The Grand Old Lady’ it was also a marvellous sight to see ‘The Grand Old Man’ back watching his boy’s team play so well from the Main Stand, with daughter-in-law Pamela by his side.

Quick off the mark

Sean Dyche used to say that Abdoulaye Doucoure was Everton’s “Johnny on the spot” when it came to scoring but while the midfielder netted the most-important goal of David Moyes’ predecessor’s reign, the winner against Bournemouth on the final day of the 2022/23 season to ensure the Blues avoided a first relegation in 72 years – at the expense of a certain Leicester City – things haven’t gone his way for a while now. Despite being frozen out in the final days of Frank Lampard, the former Watford man netted 11 Premier League goals in the first calendar year under Dyche.

A brace of hamstring injuries, one in each leg, followed but having turned 32 on New Year’s Day, this was the former Watford man’s first Premier League goal since the dead rubber against already-relegated Sheffield United on May 11 when his side had already preserved their own top flight status. If Doucoure’s goal against the Cherries was an historic moment, what about this one though

Everton have been playing football for 147 years but none of their players have ever been recorded as finding the net as quickly as this with the likes of Louis Saha’s 2009 FA Cup final strike after 25 seconds and the first of the goals in Tony Cottee’s debut hat-trick in 1988 after 30 seconds appearing relatively sluggish in comparison.

Transfer dilemma

Before a ball had been kicked in his second coming at Everton, Moyes maintained that signings would have to be made. Even after a hat-trick of consecutive wins, he insists that remains the case but with less than 48 hours to go now until the transfer window closes, The Friedkin Group face something of a conundrum.

The Blues’ position within the table always had the potential to concertina one way or the other, depending upon this result. Had they been beaten, and after losing their previous seven Premier League games, Leicester City went into this fixture following a 2-1 comeback win over Tottenham Hotspur, then the Foxes could have moved within just three points of Moyes’ men.

Instead, Everton now enjoy a nine-point cushion above them and the gap to the relegation zone is a further point with the Blues (minus five) currently enjoying a far superior goal difference than Ruud van Nistelrooy’s side (minus 28); Wolverhampton Wanderers (minus 20); Ipswich Town (minus 27) and Southampton (minus 36).

Indeed, with just a three-point gap between themselves and 12th placed Manchester United, maybe a rejuvenated Everton can even start looking up the table rather than over their shoulders? So, do the club’s new owners now stick or twist? Moyes himself has spoken about the difficulties to bring in the right calibre of targets in the January transfer window with the residue of the PSR problems that brought a brace of points deductions last season, continuing to bite.

Everton and TFG find themselves in a far rosier position than they could have possibly imagined when they reluctantly felt compelled to call time on Dyche’s tenure. However, as Moyes, now back, older, and as he says, hopefully wiser, admits, football can turn again quickly and for all the feel-good factor right now, they remain just an injury away from a potential crisis.