Vitor Pereira shakes hands with David Moyes prior to the match between Wolverhampton Wanderers and Everton at Molineux on March 8, 2025
Vitor Pereira shakes hands with David Moyes prior to the match between Wolverhampton Wanderers and Everton at Molineux on March 8, 2025
So, we finally got to see Vitor Pereira on the touchline in an Everton match – and thankfully he was in the opposition dugout.
Although they’re both a couple of managers with a penchant for scribbling down notes and honours were even on the night as their sides played out a 1-1 draw, the Wolverhampton Wanderers gaffer and David Moyes cut contrasting figures at Molineux.
At 61, the Glaswegian, who was once the youngest manager in the Premier League when he first took the reins at Goodison Park as a 38-year-old back in 2002, is now the English top flight’s elder statesman. But age has not dimmed Moyes’ passion and while those once ginger locks that prompted Evertonians to sing: “He’s got red hair, but we don’t care,” have now faded to grey, he still cuts an animated figure, prowling his technical area, issuing instructions, delivering a ‘death stare’ when required and even kicking or heading every ball with his players – as we saw with Jake O’Brien’s equaliser at Brentford.
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In contrast, the studious Pereira came across as a somewhat anonymous presence as he remained seated for what seemed like prolonged periods. If only the Portuguese tactician had kept a similarly low profile when he was looking to become Everton manager himself in January 2022.
In what became a notorious piece of live ‘car crash’ television – garnering attention for all the wrong reasons – Pereira spoke down the phone for 20 minutes to Sky Sports News in a desperate bid to land the top job at “Godison” Park as he called the Blues’ home since 1892. He certainly talked a good game in the eyes of some, speaking about pressing, possession football and the eight trophies he’d won during his career.
However, cynics feared such honeyed words might have lured Farhad Moshiri into making another inappropriate choice for the job rather than listening to the opinions of his own club’s supporters, having just axed Rafael Benitez after going against the advice of Bill Kenwright and Marcel Brands the previous summer to make the former Kop Idol the most controversial appointment in the history of the most passionate city in English football.
You could tell that Sky were trying to milk this golden opportunity of getting a Premier League managerial candidate on the blower for all it was worth and series of follow-up questions, including chancing their arm with ones about when he last spoke to Everton officials and whether he felt he was ultimately going to be the next Blues boss, failed to get a bite. The circus plummeted to new depths when a phone was heard ringing in the background and Pereira was asked if it was Everton, to which he replied: “No!”
The fact that such a scenario was able to materialise – Frank Lampard of course would ultimately land the vacancy – was indicative of the capricious and chaotic leadership that dogged the Moshiri years at Goodison. As former Crystal Palace chairman Simon Jordan blasted when the deal was struck last September that would result in a takeover by The Friedkin Group being completed in time for Christmas: “I personally believe that the moment you put an end to this clown college Moshiri has presided over, the better it is for Everton.
“I don’t think he’s been good for them. I think dealing with him is like nailing a jelly to the wall.”
Having replaced Gary O’Neil in December, Pereira looks like he’s going to keep Wolves afloat this season. But they’re a very different club to Everton and like a latter-day footballing version of Macau, Molineux has become like an overseas Portuguese colony in recent years with their current boss following compatriots Nuno Espirito Santo and Bruno Lage plus fellow Iberian Julen Lopetegui in the hot seat while no fewer than 25 players from Portugal have turned out for them, including captain Nelson Semedo among half a dozen of their current squad.
Like Pereira, Moyes himself was one of the many managers that Moshiri – who churned his way through eight in as many years – considered during his time at Everton but again, the Monaco-based businessman never took the plunge, despite the Scot later admitting that he was seriously in the frame to come back on three separate occasions. Given the way that returning Blues boss, who steered Everton to nine top eight finishes during his first spell, including a best ever Premier League position of fourth in 2004/05, has revived their fortunes this year, he’s quickly building a case that makes you wonder – a bit like Alex Ferguson who handpicked him to be his successor at Manchester United – whether anyone else can successfully manage the club in modern times.
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Indeed, since Moyes came back, the Blues have embarked on an eight-match unbeaten run in the Premier League, their longest sequence since he was last in charge in November 2012. After his replacement Roberto Martinez was sacked, Moshiri then installed the director of football model at Goodison Park, initially hiring Steve Walsh, but when current incumbent Kevin Thelwell’s contract expires this summer, Everton are dispensing with the title and will in their own words “transition” to a wider sporting leadership team.
When being interviewed by this correspondent in the Goodison Park: My Home series some three months before he came back to Everton, Moyes spoke of his willingness to work alongside a director of football but called for those who brought players in to take responsibility for their actions.
Given the hands-on approach to recruitment that he showed with the Blues in the past, many Evertonians will be surely pleased and relieved at the prospect of him taking the lead again.
Everton are now closer to Champions League qualification than the relegation zone in terms of points. Considering that dramatic upturn already shown under Moyes – the man who previously brought the likes of Mikel Arteta, Tim Cahill, Steven Pienaar, Leighton Baines, Phil Jagielka, Tim Howard, Seamus Coleman and Marouane Fellaini to the club in an era when he said competing with Manchester City’s petrodollar-fuelled wealth was “like taking a knife to a gunfight,” – he has earned his right to some beefed-up transfer ammunition from TFG as the Blues embark on what should be a bright new dawn at their future home on the Mersey waterfront.