Talking Point: Chris Beesley examines what David Moyes can bring to Everton going forward after the Blues boss reached a major milestone against Aston Villa
ECHO Everton reporter Chris Beesley has covered Everton and Liverpool both in the Premier League and abroad since 2005. He cut his teeth in professional sports journalism at the Ellesmere Port Pioneer and then the Welsh edition of the Daily Post, where he also covered Manchester United. Prior to that he worked on the student newspaper Pluto at the University of Central Lancashire, a role in which he first encountered David Moyes. Chris is well-known for his sartorial elegance and the aforementioned Scottish manager once enquired of him at a press conference: "Is that your dad's suit you've got on?" while the tradition continued in 2023 with new Blues boss Sean Dyche complimenting him on his smart appearance.
David Moyes (centre) is now second only to Harry Catterick (left) when it comes to the number of matches as Everton manager after overhauling Howard Kendall (right) against Aston Villa on Saturday
David Moyes (centre) is now second only to Harry Catterick (left) when it comes to the number of matches as Everton manager after overhauling Howard Kendall (right) against Aston Villa on Saturday
On what was another historic fixture at Hill Dickinson Stadium, David Moyes reached a major milestone as Everton manager that reinforces just how much he is ingrained in the fabric of the football club.
Everton versus Aston Villa isn’t just the most played game in the English top flight, it’s the most played league game in the whole of English professional football. These two clubs have been competing against each other regularly since the game’s pioneering days in the Victorian era.
In what was their 215th meeting, Aston Villa became the first team to play an away game against Everton at Anfield, Goodison Park and now Hill Dickinson Stadium. Everton’s 76 league wins over Villa are a club record against a single opponent, but the goalless draw ensured they have now failed to beat them in 13 league matches since the West Midlanders last won promotion in 2019.
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The 2025/26 campaign marks Everton’s 123rd season in top flight football with Villa their closest challengers on 112. In many ways, impartial observers, of which there might not be too many reading this article, might conclude these two clubs are of similar size and stature, but the timelines of their respective achievements are rather different.
Whereas the Blues have displayed longevity to lift major honours across nine separate decades – a feat that only Liverpool and Manchester United can top – Villa, who along with Blackburn Rovers became the last of the Football League’s founder members to be relegated in 1936 - peaked early with all but one of their seven League Championships and all but one of their seven FA Cups coming over a century ago.
Unlike Everton though, they do have pedigree in the League Cup, having won it five times, including in 1977 when they beat the Blues in a second replay of the final, the only time it’s taken three games to settle the contest.
Having secured their first title in over three score years and ten in 1981, Villa also lifted the European Cup the following campaign in an era when English clubs lifted the trophy seven seasons out of eight. Everton of course were denied their big chance with the best-ever side in their history in 1985 due to off-the-field matters.
The manager who put together the Blues’ most-successful team was Howard Kendall, already a legend at Goodison Park for his exploits as a player, being one third of the fabled midfield trio dubbed ‘The Holy Trinity’ alongside his future assistant boss and successor in the dugout, Colin Harvey, plus England World Cup winner Alan Ball. Considering all that Kendall gave to Everton over three separate spells in charge, it’s a testament to Moyes’ longevity that Saturday’s stalemate against Villa was his 543rd as Blues boss, moving him one ahead of the man whose name now adorns the Gwladys Street Stand into second spot in his own right on the all-time list.
With two years remaining on his current contract, the Glaswegian, who has already managed more Premier League matches than any of his peers other than retired serial champions Alex Ferguson at Manchester United and Arsene Wenger at Arsenal, will now have another two-time title-winning Goodison gaffer in his sights in Harry Catterick (592 games) when it comes to the crown of being the longest-serving manager in Everton’s history.
As all of these luminaries’ records show, winners naturally get to stay on in plum positions and given the difficulties that the Blues have faced in recent decades, when it comes to relative success, Moyes, with nine top-eight Premier League finishes in his first spell, including a highest ever placing in the competition of fourth in 2004/05, is head and shoulders above his peers. Indeed, given how quickly things unravelled for his successor Roberto Martinez after posting Everton’s highest-ever Premier League points total in the season after Moyes’ departure to Manchester United and the way the Catalan was able to assemble arguably the club’s most talented squad of the 21st century to date, you could put forward a strong case to argue that the man who first took the reins in 2002 is the only manager who has shown he can boss the Blues well over any sustained period of time in the modern era.
Having written my first book, Spirit of the Blues: Everton’s Most Memorable Matches & Goodison Park’s Greatest Games – a second title, On The Banks Of The Royal Blue Mersey is on the way to document Everton’s first season at the dock – this correspondent was honoured and humbled to present Moyes with a copy at Hill Dickinson Stadium after his landmark game against Aston Villa, given that both he and the late Howard Kendall are both illustrated on the cover. Many stirring clashes under his tenure are contained within the pages, including three from the Grand Old Lady’s final campaign as he returned to make history, but for all the crucial role that he has played, he did not make his way into the ‘Glory days’ chapter.
Although Goodison Park – which on Sunday began its new incarnation as the permanent home of Everton Women – was the pre-eminent club ground in the country for the bulk of the time that the Blues played there, since the advent of the Premier League, the venue fell badly behind so many of its rivals. The year before Everton moved out, it was only ranked third bottom among top flight venues when it came to generating matchday revenue and for a club as large and storied as the Blues, that’s anything but ‘Nil Satis Nisi Optimum.’
It’s no coincidence then that this period has corresponded with the longest-ever trophy drought in Everton’s history, now stretching back over three decades. Moyes, who has gone from being the Premier League’s youngest manager at 38 when he coined the phrase “The People’s Club,” to being the division’s elder statesman at 62, may fear that time is not on his side when it comes to rectifying the Blues’ agonising wait.
But as he’s already pointed out, the team have taken great strides since they lost their corresponding fixture with Aston Villa 1-0 in his first game back, standing one point above the relegation zone and with their returning boss fearing he could tarnish his legacy with Evertonians by taking them down in Goodison’s final season. Since then, there has been a massive upturn both on and off the pitch with Moyes the chief architect of the former and demonstrating just what a good fit he is for the club and how he has come back to them as a more well-rounded manager, who is not just older but wiser.
In an interview published last week, he understandably cited winning the first major trophy of his career, the UEFA Europa Conference League with West Ham United in 2023 – ending the east London club’s own 43-year drought – as the greatest moment of his career, but if he could bring silverware to Everton, that would eclipse everything that he has achieved. Knowing he is now being given the tools and the platform to right that wrong, with the adulation and respect that would bring, will be the motivation that spurs him on to forge a bright future for Blues to live up to that glorious past.