Chris Beesley tackles a talking point following Everton's 2-0 win over Fulham
Just as Rome wasn’t built in a day, so Everton’s brand-new dawn by the banks of the Mersey is not going to restore the club to the top of the football tree overnight But the fact is – as pointed out online by EFC Statto – after beating Fulham 2-0, Everton have taken 11 Premier League games to reach four wins this season, some 10 fewer than last term.
And that elusive fourth victory only arrived on January 19 after David Moyes returned to the club.
In the upturn in form that followed, there were a further five away wins for a team that had triumphed just once on the road over the previous 12 months – at Ipswich Town, who went straight back down to the Championship after back-to-back promotions – with the Blues, who had been just one point above the relegation zone with a meagre 17 points from 19 matches when Moyes came back in, securing their Premier League status with five matches left to play.
After making a bold decision to make a change just three weeks after their takeover was complete, ambitious new owners The Friedkin Group had brought back a manager who understood the workings of the club as well as anyone in the business at what was a pivotal moment in Everton’s history.
Moyes is the man that – ahead of another home win over Fulham when he first started some 23-and-a-half years ago – dubbed Everton ‘The People’s Club,’ a tag that Goodison Park patrons embraced.
He oversaw the Blues' most consistent period of the Premier League era, guiding an ailing outfit that had finished in the top half just once in the first decade of the competition to no fewer than nine top eight-placings, including fourth in 2004/05, which more than two decades on remains their highest-ever position since English top flight football was rebranded.
You could make a convincing argument to suggest that Moyes is the only person to manage the club successfully over a prolonged stretch in modern times because Joe Royle, who secured the only pre-Moyes top half finish in the Premier League (sixth in 1995/96, on the back of lifting the FA Cup, the club’s last major trophy the previous year), only had one full season in charge, and fortunes quickly plummeted for the Glaswegian gaffer’s successor Roberto Martinez, after his fresh ideas built on his predecessor’s foundations to record Everton’s highest-ever Premier League points tally of 72 in 2013/14, buoyed by the goals of Romelu Lukaku, the kind of prolific year in, year out striker that eluded Moyes.
Yet consecutive defeats over the past month to Manchester City, whose attack is spearheaded by super-human goal machine Erling Haaland, andTottenham Hotspur had some sections of the fanbase calling for Moyes’ head.
When recording a live edition of the ECHO’s Royal Blue podcast a fortnight ago, this correspondent could see the comments coming through, with suggestions that the Scot’s second spell should be coming to a close after a mere 10 months in charge and claims that Crystal Palace’s Oliver Glasner or Bournemouth’s Andoni Iraola would be getting more out of this group of players.
After failed to build on their bright start at Sunderland after going ahead and drawing 1-1, the doom-mongers were at it again. Curious then that table-topping Arsenal also returned with just a point themselves from the Stadium of Light some five days later in the Black Cats’ following game.
Because modern technology now enables us to live in an ‘instant’ world now, it seems that some people are demanding instant results in every aspect of their existence, regardless of how unrealistic that might be. Moyes can perhaps count himself lucky that social media was not as prevalent the year before he guided Everton to fourth as the team finished 17th on 39 points, or the season after that landmark campaign when they lost 11 out of 14 games.
Sure enough, they’d rally in the second half of 2005/06 to finish 11th and then never drop below eighth over the subsequent seven seasons. It’s not a phenomenon reserved for Evertonians, though, as across the city a run of six defeats in seven games prompted Arne Slot’s position to be questioned barely six months after he steered Liverpool to their first league championship in front of fans for 35 years.
And before all the blame for this knee-jerking is pointed at the fickle swiping fingers of Gen Z, reared on ephemeral entertainments like TikTok, a fellow middle-aged journalist who like myself got into the profession at the turn of the millennium concurred with me recently that the old boys are just as bad.
After all, it wasn’t the teenagers who made 58-year-old Nottingham Forest owner Evangelos Marinakas turn to Sean Dyche as his third manager of the season before the clocks even went back.
So, hopefully the 2-0 win over Fulham, which placed Everton just three points off a European place in a congested Premier League table, allows everyone just to calm down and take stock. While everyone is entitled to their opinion and Moyes – like everyone else in his profession – knows that constant scrutiny goes with the job, he has a proven track record that shows he knows what he is doing.
Only serial title winners Alex Ferguson of Manchester United and Arsene Wenger of Arsenal have managed more Premier League games and those who criticised Moyes’ methods at West United are now severely regretting their actions given the mess their club now finds itself in.
You or indeed I might not agree with every decision that he makes or may observe flaws in the side on a game-to-game basis, but after eight managers in as many years under Farhad Moshiri, the Blues are extremely fortunate that the churn ended them coming full circle to the man who knows them best.
Moyes’ programme notes for the Fulham game – and he’s a manager who takes great care in the sentences he uses for this important platform when speaking to the fanbase – were headlined: “Small margins can make a big difference.”
Among his message, he wrote: “We have new owners, a new CEO, and lots of other new staff coming into the club, all getting used to the values and the standards we expect at Everton Football Club. I have been very impressed with all of them in the short time we’ve all been here together.
“We are all thrilled to be part of our new stadium, but history will tell you that a move to a new home can be challenging. So, let’s continue to build on the start we have made here and hope the future is a bright one.”
Wise words indeed.