David Moyes is doing a better job at Everton than Mikel Arteta at Arsenal, Pep Guardiola at Manchester City and Arne Slot at Liverpool, reckons Anders Limpar, who has named a target for his former club
David Moyes is doing a more impressive job at Everton than Mikel Arteta at Arsenal, Pep Guardiola at Manchester City or Arne Slot at Liverpool.
That’s the verdict of a player who won major honours at both Everton and Arsenal, Anders Limpar, even though Arteta’s side are top of the Premier League and still fighting on all four fronts of the competitions they have entered this season.
Led by Arteta, another man who represented both clubs in his own playing career, the Gunners are currently seven points clear of Manchester City – who they face in the Carabao Cup final – at the Premier League summit, have been drawn away to Southampton in the FA Cup quarter-finals and face Leverkusen on Tuesday in the Champions League round of 16.
The Blues in contrast, were just one point above the relegation zone in January last year when Moyes, the manager who brought Arteta to Goodison Park in 2005, returned for a second stint in charge. Under the Glaswegian, Everton, who finished 13th last season, currently sit eighth in the table ahead of their trip to the Emirates Stadium on Saturday to face Arsenal.
And speaking to FruityKing, Limpar said: “If you have a manager like David Moyes doing wonders with Everton, that’s a much bigger achievement than Mikel Arteta winning the Premier League with 22 world class players or Pep Guardiola doing the same or Arne Slot. It’s a better feat of management.
“I’m not here to question any managers, but when you look at what each manager has to work with and you compare that with Moyes. He’s very clever.
“I think he’s an honorary Scouser now too. He knows the people.
“He knows the players, he knows how to please them. It’s better management if you know what I’m saying.”
Although Moyes himself was coy about the prospect of playing two strikers up front together for Everton when asked about pairing Beto with Thierno Barry in his pre-match press conference for their last game against Burnley, it’s a tactic that Limpar, who was described by his own Blues boss Joe Royle as “a football genius,” and the most-talented player he ever worked with, would like to see revived.
The 60-year-old, who won the League Championship with Arsenal in 1991 and then the FA Cup with Everton in 1995, said: “Are Evan Ferguson or Troy Parrott the sort of strikers Everton need to sign? You can definitely bring players in like them so long as they are goalscorers who can take care of the chances.
“Nowadays it’s become the fashion to 4-3-3 and one number nine but in my opinion a team like Everton should play 4-4-2 with two up front.
“You would have to take a player away from midfield but then people can run off each other, and even then if you had a player like Thierno Barry or Beto playing up top with them, that takes the pressure off them as individuals.
“I’d like to see Everton play like that with a 4-4-2 as a solid unit with two wingers like Jack Grealish and Iliman Ndiaye, we will score many more goals but then again I’m not down at training at Finch Farm every day to see how they are shaping up. I think with the wingers we have, we could bring a couple of strikers in.”
Limpar, who won 58 caps for Sweden, scoring six international goals, and helped his nation to finish third in the last World Cup finals in the USA in 1994, shortly after Everton’s 3-2 comeback win over Wimbledon to avoid relegation from the Premier League on the final day of the season, reckons Moyes would do well to take a look at the club where the former centre-back started his own playing career to snap up one of his compatriots.
He said: “Would David Moyes love to have Benjamin Nygren at Everton? Yes, because he’s so mobile.
“He can come deep, receive the ball, and I think he has better technique than Viktor Gyokeres, but he’s not close to the whole picture of Viktor as a player yet. He is scoring vital goals for Celtic and he’s doing well.”