A season in which European qualification was the goal has ended in bitter disappointment for Everton.
Despite being in the hunt for a Champions League place as late as March, a humiliating defensive capitulation has left loyal but long-suffering Blues shaking their heads. An impressive record on the road had put Everton in contention but ultimately too many slip ups at home have let them down.
Given the spectacular collapse at the business end of the campaign when leading teams should be moving up the gears and hitting top form for the run-in, an increasing number of frustrated fans have even started calling for the manager’s head a mere 18 months into his reign.
Except they haven’t. Because it is not the present day that this correspondent is referring to but five years ago in 2021 when Carlo Ancelotti was Blues boss.
The Italian had Everton second in the table on Boxing Day but despite having far greater resources than David Moyes at his disposal, including World Cup Golden Boot winner James Rodriguez, Lucas Digne at left-back and Dominic Calvert-Lewin netting a career-high 21 goals in all competitions, he still flattered to deceive in the weird and not-so-wonderful world of football played mostly behind closed doors because of the global coronavirus pandemic.
Despite winning for the only occasion to date at both Tottenham Hotspur Stadium and the Emirates Stadium plus triumphing at Anfield for the first time since 1999, no fans were in attendance at any of those matches. In contrast to their happy travels, the Blues were beaten nine times at Goodison Park.
By the way, how awful were so many of Everton’s games to watch on television that season? Even when they were winning.
If he’d been anyone other than the ‘great’ Carlo Ancelotti, the most decorated coach in European Cup history, he’d have been feeling the heat for such a relative failure. Yet because he was the ‘great’ Carlo Ancelotti, before anyone could start picking the bones out what ended up being quite a shoddy showing, he was on the phone to his old pals at Real Madrid, supposedly enquiring about the possibility of bringing one of their players to the Blues, but miraculously ending up with a job offer to take him back to the Bernabeu.
Everton were left stunned as by June 1, just nine days after he was presiding over their 5-0 mauling at Manchester City, Ancelotti was being unveiled by Los Blancos. In turn, majority shareholder Farhad Moshiri felt compelled to turn to Madrid for a replacement by making the most controversial managerial appointment in the history of the most passionate city in English football by hiring former Kop Idol Rafael Benitez.
Like Ronald Koeman, Moshiri’s first managerial choice in 2016, the Blues proved to be just another convenient port of call on a career that spanned across Western Europe for Ancelotti following his abrupt exit, yet the pair of them continued to be viewed through rather different lenses by many Evertonians with plenty still fawning over ‘Don Carlo.’ Unlike the brusque Dutchman, with the veneer of his Italian manners, Ancelotti charmed Blues but that proved to be deceptive.
The only Everton manager in the 21st century to choose to make his home on Merseyside, he seemed enjoy life by the sea and as well as regularly being spotted walking his dogs by Crosby Beach he would regularly pop up looking at ease in locations such as Bootle New Strand or a garage, decked out in his club apparel.
At the time, fans relished his ‘non reaction’ as he calmly blew on his hot cup of tea in one of the few thrillers at an empty Goodison as Bernard struck an extra-time winner to defeat Spurs 5-4 in the FA Cup, while those around him on the touchline – including assistant Duncan Ferguson – went berserk. This coolness was lauded as an act of a wise footballing sage who had seen everything in the game over his long and successful career, but maybe he just didn’t care as much as the others within the camp?
Carlo Ancelotti calmly blows on his cup of tea to cool it after Everton went 5-4 up in extra time in an FA Cup thriller against Tottenham Hotspur in 2021
Carlo Ancelotti calmly blows on his cup of tea to cool it after Everton went 5-4 up in extra time in an FA Cup thriller against Tottenham Hotspur in 2021
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Compare that to one of the defining images of this season, a jubilant David Moyes unable to contain his emotions and running onto the pitch at Brighton & Hove Albion to celebrate birthday boy Beto’s last-gasp equaliser, back when we used to enjoy stoppage time goals in Blues matches. After picking up a yellow card for his troubles which forced him to watch the following week’s 2-1 win at Fulham from the stands at Craven Cottage, the Glaswegian gaffer was asked if he would repeat his actions in the future.
Moyes replied: “I bloody will do it again. Actually, I think if I’d been a bit more mobile, I might have done a knee slide.
“See, that would have only got me a yellow as well, so I might as well have gone the whole hog!”
Yet, less than four months on, an increasing number of Evertonians are questioning the position of someone who has steered the club to nine top-eight finishes, including their highest-ever Premier League position – the Blues had only made it into the top-half once in the decade before his arrival – and who, on returning at the halfway point of last season with the team one point above the relegation zone, steered them to safety with five matches to go.
Yes, a six-match winless streak, just at the time when Everton should have been pushing on for Europe is maddening, nobody is denying that and we’re all hurting right now, but unfortunately this is not a new phenomenon from Blues players who have been choking in key moments for decades now. Never mind the aforementioned trips to Liverpool, Arsenal or even Tottenham – the latter of which comes into focus this Sunday as the north London outfit fight for survival on the final day – look at the club’s record at their longest-running bogey ground Stamford Bridge.
Everton haven’t picked up three points there since November 26, 1994, when 1% of the UK population had access to the internet in their homes, so that’s an issue that predates even Moyes. Yet, Sunderland, who leapfrogged the Blues with their 3-1 win on Sunday have triumphed there this term and that was actually their fourth victory at Chelsea since Paul Rideout’s strike gave Joe Royle a success in his first away game in charge despite them being out of the Premier League for 15 of those seasons.
Even though they avoided relegation with three games to spare in a campaign in which they were handed an unprecedented brace of points deductions, Everton had to endure a winless run in the Premier League that stretched beyond Christmas to Easter under Sean Dyche in 2023/24. His predecessor Frank Lampard failed to win any of his last 10 matches as Blues boss, a sequence that included eight defeats.
Before him, it was a run of just one win from his final 13 Premier League matches, that chairman Bill Kenwright would later describe as “unacceptably disappointing,” that cost Benitez his job rather than his previous employment at Anfield. Like Lampard, subsequently revived at Coventry City who stormed to the Championship title this year, Ancelotti showed that he was no busted flush, adding a further brace of Champions Leagues and La Liga titles with Real Madrid to his glittering CV following his Everton exit and he’s now leading the World Cup’s most-successful nation Brazil at this summer’s finals.
Speaking on the Royal Blue podcast, Everton’s official statistician Gavin Buckland has described Ancelotti’s Goodison Park appointment as a decision in which both parties were out of their depth. But then the man who has lifted major silverware in all five of Europe’s ‘Big Five’ leagues, has always been more at home massaging the egos of Galacticos than trying to get a tune out of the likes of Mason Holgate.
The Blues burned through eight bosses in as many years under Moshiri. Such managerial churn is toxic and the cycle of chopping and changing has to stop if Everton are to move forward again.
Just look at Moyes’ first spell in charge. The club’s hierarchy showed loyalty to him after a difficult 17th place finish in his second full season in charge and were rewarded with the most stable period of modern times, in sharp contrast to the chaos after he left.
Even the manner of Moyes’ exit in 2013 after over 11 years of service has become a stick to beat him with when it comes to the current haters, some of whom are now claiming they never wanted him back. All Blues were disappointed when he departed for Manchester United having ran down his contract.
However, the way in which he is treated like a persona non grata in the eyes of some for being handpicked by fellow Glaswegian Sir Alex Ferguson to succeed him at the most successful club in the country at the time contrasts sharply to the way in many an ‘Everton Da’ gets as giddy as a schoolgirl when Ancelotti raises an eyebrow, or the manner in which Howard Kendall was welcomed back after defecting to Bilbao to join Athletic Club after the 1987 title triumph.
Some are citing the fact that Andoni Iraola and Oliver Glasner are to become free agents this summer as a reason to change, but as well as that pair have done and may do in the future, managing Bournemouth or even Crystal Palace, is a totally different situation than taking charge of Everton.
The Cherries’ Vitality Stadium holds just 11,307, which makes it smaller than the Blues’ League Two neighbours Tranmere Rovers’ 16,567 capacity Prenton Park. There are more fans in the South Stand at Hill Dickinson Stadium for every home game.
The pressure is well and truly off at a club who have never won a major trophy, rather than one who boasts an illustrious past but is now feeling the weight of expectation brought by the longest silverware drought in their history. Iraola has worked wonders steering Bournemouth to sixth place with a game to go on the back of a 17-match unbeaten run but before that, his side went 11 games without a win.
Would another Everton manager survive such a sequence? And never mind taking the Dorset outfit to sixth, Mike Walker guided Norwich City to third – 13 points above Liverpool and 16 points above Arsenal – in the season before he took charge at Goodison and wilted in the pressure cooker environment of Merseyside compared to operating in the backwaters of Norfolk.
Glasner has led Crystal Palace to the first major trophy in their history – we’re not counting the 4-1 win over the Blues in the Zenith Data Systems Cup final when Neville Southall refused to collect his runners-up medal – and they could go on and pick up another one later this month in the Conference League final. However, they’re still going to finish below Everton this term, the Austrian has only ever picked up one point in four matches against them, and there are major doubts over whether the Blues could deploy his wing-back system successfully.
West Ham United manager David Moyes celebrates with the UEFA Europa Conference League trophy after the team's victory during the UEFA Europa Conference League 2022/23 final match between ACF Fiorentina and West Ham United FC at Eden Arena
West Ham United manager David Moyes celebrates with the UEFA Europa Conference League trophy after the team's victory during the UEFA Europa Conference League 2022/23 final match between ACF Fiorentina and West Ham United FC at Eden Arena (Image: Richard Heathcote/Getty Images)
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In contrast, despite his team’s failings of recent weeks, Moyes is arguably the ONLY man to have shown he can manage Everton with relative success over a prolonged period in the Premier League era. Look at what has happened to West Ham United, who he guided to a first trophy in 43 years but then was chased out over a playing style that was supposedly not progressive enough for the self-styled ‘Academy of football.’
The Irons now have one foot in the Championship. A string of perplexing refereeing decisions this season have not helped but everyone at the Blues should have done better since the 3-0 win over Chelsea, that is not in dispute.
However, the leader who dubbed this venerable but vulnerable football institution “The People’s Club,” is also a calibre of manager who could not have been attracted to come back and save them in their final season at Goodison Park had it not been for that prior association. David William Moyes, the only manager other than serial title winners Sir Alex Ferguson at Manchester United and Arsene Wenger at Arsenal, to have picked up over a thousand Premier League points, deserves to be treated much better right now than he is by many.