In this week's Royal Blue column, Everton FC correspondent Joe Thomas looks ahead to a fixture that could be just as defining as the memorable win at Old Trafford
David Moyes during the Premier League match between Manchester United and Everton at Old Trafford in November. Photo by James Gill - Danehouse/Getty Images
David Moyes during the Premier League match between Manchester United and Everton at Old Trafford in November. Photo by James Gill - Danehouse/Getty Images
View Image
It is hard to sum up just how important Everton's win at Manchester United was three months ago.
The Blues have made a habit of winning away from home since David Moyes' return to the dugout - eleven times a sold out away end has stayed beyond the final whistle to celebrate three points. There have been happy road trips since that night at Old Trafford, at Bournemouth, at Nottingham Forest, at Aston Villa, at Fulham.
But the win down the East Lancs hit different for the players, for Moyes, and for those supporters. It was a different-type of victory, one achieved at a ground where the club had struggled for decades and that it came in the face of such astonishing adversity made it even more significant for all involved. It was the catalyst for the belief that Everton's darkest days were behind them.
That win fuelled the surge in belief that followed, it was the catalyst for the idea that a push for Europe might be a possibility now, not in two or three carefully planned out years. The players grew that night and, after the shellshock of the defeat to Newcastle United - a game in which they sorely missed Idrissa Gueye as he began his suspension for his antics under the lights in Manchester - they went and won at Bournemouth and then smashed Forest. Everton conquered demons that had tormented them for years at Villa Park and the Vitality Stadium and both of those wins had their roots in the ceiling-shattering victory against Man United.
That win came at a time when it was needed for the Blues as they approached winter stuttering in form - producing good moments rather than complete performances and lurching between competence and frustration.
On Monday, the same team that inspired them to burst out of that stupour before the festive season will visit Hill Dickinson Stadium with Everton in need of a similar jump start. On the face of it, this remains a very good season. Everton sit eighth in the Premier League table, a refreshing dose of altitude sickness after years of relegation fights.
Even though the club has finished 13th several times, that position of relative safety only came after late bursts of form took the club away from the trouble they had flirted with in each of the past four years.
This season, the club has spent plenty of time on the right side of the mid-table battle and has repeatedly been on the cusp of the top seven. That goal is still feasible - it is just three points away and no-one in the fight for seventh has shown any real sign of seizing the initiative in a battle that will ebb and flow for months to come.
Yet for all this is a welcome respite from years of turgid and, at times, painful struggle, it feels like Everton have missed several glorious opportunities to push on. That frustration was again evident in the collapse at home to Bournemouth last time out. Moyes was livid after the platform laid through a decent hour of work was squandered in 480 seconds of madness.
He was not just angry, I got the sense that he was also gutted. Moyes was aware of the bigger picture of that result - how a win would have left Everton clinging onto the coattails of the top seven rather than being dragged towards the chasing pack. I saw and read and heard a lot of criticism of the Blues boss after that game and I thought most of it was misplaced. Yes, there have been games (Wolves at home jumps to mind) where I think the missed chances to deal with a change of momentum proved costly.
On that cold Tuesday night I thought his starting XI was as positive as could realistically be hoped for knowing his faith in Jake O’Brien over Nathan Patterson at right back. Everton were the better side, had a lead, had hit the post and missed two wonderful opportunities when Rayan equalised at the back post. Moyes did not want to engage with my question on the topic - or any query, really - in the immediate aftermath of that game but it was clear to me he had spotted the issue that led to the equaliser and was trying to address it before it counted, only for the ball to remain in play while he provided instructions to Harrison Armstrong, who was being readied to counter the threat of the teenage Bournemouth winger.
Collapses such as that against the Cherries can prove damaging and I think that result hurt every layer of the club - in a similar way the win at Man Utd strengthened the club in every area.
After a two week break and with a full squad, injured Jack Grealish and suspended Jake O’Brien aside, there has been no shortage of time for those at Finch Farm to come to terms with snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. What they now need is to find another season-defining win, one that can restore belief on and off the pitch, where the psyche of the home crowd has been hurt after a miserable run on the Liverpool waterfront. This is a game that comes with jeopardy - this is a very different Man Utd side to the one Everton overcame with 10 men earlier in the season. But they have frailties and the potential is there for a result that is just as powerful as that November win. This would be the perfect way to kickstart the run towards the end of the season.