Today is Blue Monday, a date that some would have us believe is the most depressing day of the year, but for Evertonians it’s taking on a far more positive meaning. After years of pain, penury, pandemonium and points deductions under Farhad Moshiri, new owners The Friedkin Group have brought back David Moyes to rescue the club’s historic final campaign at Goodison Park and lead them into a bright new era at their 52,888 capacity future home by the banks of the Mersey next season.

If last Wednesday night was something of a false start against Aston Villa with a line-up and tactics that appeared like a hangover from Sean Dyche’s tenure in the 1-0 defeat, Sunday’s display when facing Tottenham Hotspur – especially the rip-roaring first half – was a welcome breath of fresh air that lifted the Goodison gloom. On what was a themed ‘Retro Day’ at the ground with supporters encouraged to don their old shirts and scarves, Everton turned back the clock in impressive fashion.

As the Blues picked up their first Premier League win in eight matches, jubilant fans hailed their returning gaffer with the ‘old skool’ tune proclaiming: “He’s got red hair, but we don’t care.” “It’s now grey, so I don’t know if that works,” said the 61-year-old, who has gone from being the top flight’s youngest manager when he started at Everton in 2002 to the oldest now.

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We’re a generation on from when the Glaswegian first sat in the Goodison hot seat and he acknowledges he’s come back to a different Everton as a different manager. While only Harry Catterick had a lengthier tenure in the role (12 years), Moyes had been away longer than he was in charge with subsequent spells at Manchester United, Real Sociedad, Sunderland and West Ham United – twice – but he’s hoping that as well as coming back older, he is also wiser.

Although Moyes will have picked up plenty of new tricks along the way, his decision over Jake O’Brien, who excelled in a role other than his natural position, had a distinctly ‘Retro Day’ feel about it. Born on May 15, 2001, the Republic of Ireland international was just 10 months old when his new gaffer first took charge of the Blues.

Given that at 6ft 6in, with only 2014 loan man Lacina Traore, ‘The Big Tree’ taller than him (by two inches) among every outfield player Everton have ever had, you suspect that the County Cork native would have been a big baby, but even if that was the case, he’d obviously have no recollection of when Moyes became an instant hit with Blues by christening his new employers “The People’s Club.” The same surely applies to the 2007/08 season when despite splashing out £6million on Leighton Baines, to make him the most expensive defender in the club’s history at the time, the Blues boss would often select centre-back Joleon Lescott ahead of him at left-back.

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Capped 30 times by England and making the PFA Team of the Year in both of the final two seasons of Moyes’ first tenure, prompting his former boss to try and take him to Old Trafford in the summer of 2013 in a Manchester United transfer raid, Baines arguably matured to become Everton’s best left-back of the Premier League era. However, as he learned his way in those early months at Goodison Park, Lescott, another of the manager's best buys, provided a more imposing defensive option out wide.

In contrast, it’s O’Brien who is the expensive signing, the Blues’ biggest acquisition of last summer both in physical and financial terms. Like another new boy Jesper Lindstrom, who produced his most-promising display so far against Spurs, the £16.43million buy from Olympique Lyonnais made an instant impact when scoring in pre-season at Preston North End, the club where Moyes cut his managerial teeth, but when it’s come to competitive action, chances were few and far between under the previous regime.

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O’Brien turned out 32 times in all competitions for Lyon last season but this term his only starts under Dyche had been a brace of Carabao Cup outings. We’re told that the former Burnley boss picked the 11, including O’Brien, that faced Peterborough United in the FA Cup third round but by that point, the aforementioned Baines and Seamus Coleman were in charge as caretaker managers.

Back on October 24, Dyche declared: “We have four very good centre-backs, all fighting for the shirt. That will look after itself.”

Whatever that meant, it didn’t look after O’Brien though. James Tarkowski, who has become Everton’s de facto skipper with 36-year-old club captain Coleman starting just two Premier League matches this season, is a durable ever-present across 97 matches since he signed for the club and has reprised his central defensive partnership with Jarrad Branthwaite since he returned to fitness while Michael Keane deputised for ‘The Carlisle Kaiser’ earlier in the campaign.

Perhaps sensing that O’Brien can play a big part in Everton’s future and recognising the need for fresh blood and ideas in the present, Moyes though has brought the 23-year-old in from the cold. As the player himself acknowledged in an ECHO interview published ahead of the Spurs match: “I knew it wouldn’t be easy to play games, but I thought I would have played a lot more than I did...

“I don’t regret coming here. There’s still a lot of time to show what I’m about.”