David Moyes has gone from being the Premier League’s youngest manager when he was first appointed by Everton in 2002 to the oldest now after returning to Goodison Park for a second spell in charge, but former Blues winger Pat Nevin insists his fellow Glaswegian has still got the “fire in his belly” to steer the club clear of relegation danger ahead of their move to the new stadium. After Everton picked up 17 points in the first half of the Premier League season, which leaves them just one point above the relegation zone, new owners The Friedkin Group sacked manager Sean Dyche and replaced him with Moyes, almost 23 years on from the Scot’s original arrival.

Back when he was plucked from Preston North End with no top flight experience, Moyes was just 38 but at 61 he has now returned to the club he previously managed for over 11 years, steering them to nine top half finishes, including their highest ever Premier League position of fourth in 2004/05. Speaking courtesy of talkSPORT BET, Nevin told the ECHO: “He’s got unfinished business definitely. The fire in the belly thing, don’t worry.

“I’ve known David for so, so long. The eyes are as fierce as ever when they have to be, and the love of Everton Football Club is pretty fierce as well, and I know that’s not something that’s going to be lacking.

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“If anything is going to be lacking, it’s going to be an inability to spend the money to bring in the people who he feels he needs. He’s got such great contacts though, he can hit the ground running.

“He knows the club, he knows a lot of the players and he knows the situation, so there’s no bedding in time needed and that’s good. Also, with his deep knowledge of lots of parts of English football, he could identify the type of potential signings who might be able to get them over the line.”

He added: “We all hope that David can galvanise the power of Goodison Park as we all know it’s the final season. Bringing him back, there’s history, but a lot of it is good history between David and the fans.

“We’ve seen that desperation in recent years when the players, the manager and the fans have all come together to get Everton over the line. They’ve somehow managed to do that.

“Maybe that extra little bit that David can bring to it can be the difference? In the end, it’s probably going to be a couple of points either way.

“If you get a point per game, you’re ok, but Everton have fallen a bit behind that in recent weeks without conceding a lot of goals. If Everton can stay up by a couple of points, we’ll take it, but we won’t enjoy the heartache along the way and if they can do that then the hope is that the massive rebuild can start next season.”

For a long time, Nevin, who played 150 games for Everton, scoring 21 goals between 1988-92, was adamant that the Blues should stick with Dyche for the remainder of this season, but he realises why the new owners have decided to make a change now. He said: “I understand why The Friedkin Group have made this decision, absolutely. The simple thing behind it is that there’s been a bit of a dip of late.

“I don’t think that’s the real story though. The real story is that Everton have got new owners, they had to come in and talk to Sean and find out if they shared the same vision going forward.

“Clearly not. If the manager is saying ‘there’s every chance you could go down this season,’ they’ll think: ‘Wait a minute, we don’t want to hear that negativity.’

“He’ll say that’s just realism but if they hear that and they don’t like it or Sean says he wants x, y and z for January in buying new players or to moving others on, they might not like that. He’s never been demanding though but the team needs more strength.

“If the future view for how they want football to be played doesn’t equate to what Sean’s is, then you’re probably best to part, even though there are very few around who could have done the job that Sean Dyche did. Sean saved the club last year, he absolutely did.

“I thought it was an amazing job given the limitations of the players and massive limitations in terms of the depth of the squad. It was incredible that he should do that.

“The lowest spending team tends to go down and look at Everton’s spend and Sean Dyche’s spend in recent times. He did a great job.

“Let’s be honest, it wasn’t always pleasant to watch, I don’t hide that fact, Evertonians aren’t stupid, and a lot of them didn’t like it. But if you get someone in who wants to play Brazil-type football, you know you what, with this group, you’re going down, it can’t work.

“There are only one or two people I think could have replaced Sean in these circumstances but right at the top of that list is David Moyes. So well done to the new owners, they’ve chosen the right guy.”