The Everton Thread

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Press David Moyes on the biggest disappointment of his decade atEverton and he raises a right fist from beneath the table. That would have been the cue for evasive action once but though the Premier League's third-longest serving manager has mellowed at 48, the ambition is as intense as the night he first walked into Goodison Park, labelled Everton "the people's club on Merseyside" and reinvigorated a declining body at a stroke.The fist tightens and the knuckles whiten as he answers: "I have never been able to get my hands fully around the top teams and grab them and grasp them and pull them back into us, but there have been times when I have touched them. There have been signs over the years that we are getting closer. We have been in a top league position trying to challenge but [he releases the fist and makes a clawing motion] it has always been that we can't quite get our hands over the top of them and drag them back."

Moyes marks the 10th anniversary of his arrival from Preston North End on Wednesday and the fear at Everton is that an 11th will not be forthcoming. Tottenham Hotspur, Saturday evening's visitors to Goodison, are expected to approach the Scot should Harry Redknapp take the England job this summer. Chelsea could yet surprise and change their managerial doctrine from glamour to grit. The future is uncertain. The only surety is that should Moyes leave it will be because Everton as a club have been unable to keep progress with his achievements on the field and not, as André Villas-Boas has discovered like so many before him, vice-versa.
"Everton have been up there before, it isn't anything new, but we moved quite quickly and a few years down the line we were vying for a Champions League spot," he says. "When I took the job I knew there wasn't going to be great money. The only thing I asked for was that we didn't sell any of the players unless I wanted them to go and I could prepare my teams any way I wanted. The chairman has never faltered on that. I can't go now and say I need loads of cash but the fact of the matter is Everton's actual progression is needing to be stepped up. It has been faster than we expected 10 years ago."

Moyes will consider Bill Kenwright's long-term plans for Everton before deciding which way to go. He is open to the idea of Europe – "I would love to go abroad to try it some day," he says – and admits this season, with the lack of investment and two failed stadium projects seriously biting, has been the most draining in charge.
"For me, the next part will be a conversation with Bill at the end of the season about what is next for Everton," Moyes says. "There are one or two sticking plasters which we would need to fix because we have one or two players on loan. That would be my idea: deciding on the next part of the journey for the next four or five years. I have a year to go on my contract and will speak with Bill at the end of the season and then decide where we go from there. The chairman knows it – we need to be a club that keeps going. This year has been the toughest in terms of us hanging in there but I think we knew this was always going to be a tough season."

At the end of a week in which one emerging red-haired manager lost his job at Chelsea, the Scot is as appreciative as ever of Kenwright's bold decision to turn to the Championship after sacking Walter Smith in 2002.

Moyes recalls: "I was driving down to watch Nathan Ellington at Bristol Rovers when the phone rang and it was Bill asking would I come to meet him. I went to the game and afterwards went to Bill's house in London. Jenny [Seagrove] his partner made us something to eat, we sat talking for a couple of hours, then I got back in the car and drove back home to Preston. I got in at 5am. Bill says that I kept on talking about winning. He also says that Jenny liked me. Jenny was a good judge and she picked me."

Another difference between the managerial culture at Everton and Chelsea is that, though Moyes and Villas-Boas encountered experienced dressing rooms on their arrival, only Moyes was given time and backing from his employer to change it. Indeed, his first full day as Everton manager involved handling a transfer-seeking Paul Gascoigne.

"It was a powerful dressing room of real senior players – Kevin Campbell, Ginola, Ferguson, Gazza, Davie Weir, Alan Stubbs, Tommy Gravesen. It would have been difficult for any manager," he says. "Gazza was great but he was upset at the time and wanted to move to Burnley. I had no problem, I had to try to move some of these players on. The biggest problem for me was that Burnley were due to play Preston on the Monday night. I couldn't let Gazza go and play against my team. It was too big a game. I made sure Gazza didn't play."

For all the arduous transfer windows endured and the club's inability to add that extra layer to the Everton team who qualified for the Champions League in 2005, only to draw the then-inspired Villarreal before the lucrative group stage, or the team who lost the FA Cup final to Chelsea four years later, Moyes insists there are no regrets. "The reception I got on my first day against Fulham made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. The thought of it still does. I have never regretted it. The only time I thought I was on thin ice was in my second full year when we lost to Manchester City 5-1 at the end of the season. But at no time has Bill ever been hugely critical of anything we have done.

"People think there is a love-in between me and him. It's not that but I get on well with him. I look at a lot of the situations in football and we are really fortunate that Everton have a chairman who is really supportive of his team and his club."

The problem is that 10 years after arriving at Everton, Moyes has not brought silverware to a club who had won the league title more times than Manchester United before the inception of the Premier League. He is the first to raise the subject.

"I am quite embarrassed about the whole 10 years thing," Moyes says. "I am not coming in here with a couple of trophies to show people. I can't do that, but in its own way maybe being in charge of a club like Everton for 10 years takes some doing. It is very hard to be a manager of Arsenal or Manchester United for 10 years but they have chances of trophies which keeps that going. There is no magic formula for me. I don't take my job for granted and work really hard. I genuinely do put everything I can into managing Everton and I am committed to trying to do well at the club. I can't give you a clever answer."

He has already given the club much more.

His best signing? Nigel Martyn
Favourite performance? I don't know if it was the best performance but it was memorable when we beat Liverpool 3-0
Worst defeat? Losing to Dinamo Bucharest 5-0. That was one night when the supporters really gave us stick. That was probably as low as I got. We were dire and it showed in the players for weeks afterwards
Best advice? Someone once said "be persistent" and I think about that when it's tough
Most difficult player to manage? Probably in the early years Duncan Ferguson. He was hard work and yet now he is working with me [as a youth team coach]
Life outside football? I'm boring. I think I am still trying to establish myself as a manager. I love a game of golf, I like getting a break in the summer, I spend time with my wife, and my friend from school, and I have bought a horse
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Tbh I thought it was class when Gosling knocked Liverpool out the cup. Look whats happended to him since...........
 
David Moyes has done a terrific job with Everton. If and ever he leaves, it will be the end of an era for Everton.
 
Alcaraz said:
David Moyes has done a terrific job with Everton. If and ever he leaves, it will be the end of an era for Everton.
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If I were an Everton player, I'd never want to leave the club only because of me wanting to be managed by Moyes.
 
Christ sake Ade stop being a douche. Spurs have been woeful
 
Alcaraz said:
David Moyes has done a terrific job with Everton. If and ever he leaves, it will be the end of an era for Everton.
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Thing is, gutted as though I'd be, there's some excellent young managers out there such as Rodgers. Then there's Lambert too
 
Very happy with that first half. Excellently taken goal, hassling the Spurs players constantly-solid.

Spurs have to improve on that performance. Sandro was pants, Bale was nearly non-existant, poor passing, strikers feeding off scraps. Even Parker having a quiet game. Expect Spurs to up the performance in the second half.
 
ajt09 said:
Very happy with that first half. Excellently taken goal, hassling the Spurs players constantly-solid.

Spurs have to improve on that performance. Sandro was pants, Bale was nearly non-existant, poor passing, strikers feeding off scraps. Even Parker having a quiet game. Expect Spurs to up the performance in the second half.
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cmon you can do it
 
I'd bring off Adebayor. He has been simply awful so far, not that the rest of his teammates have been much better. Everton's work rate is terrific to watch.
 
BlueHeart26 said:
cmon you can do it
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Be staggered if we came away with nothing after that display. Be annoyed if we only get a point too-just can't figure Spurs out that first half. Surprisingly poor bar Friedel
 
ajt09 said:
Be staggered if we came away with nothing after that display. Be annoyed if we only get a point too-just can't figure Spurs out that first half. Surprisingly poor bar Friedel
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Saha warming up? What happened to the gentlemen's agreement?
 
BlueHeart26 said:
Saha warming up? What happened to the gentlemen's agreement?
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That caught me by surprise too. Heard that he wouldn't be playing today. Either way not really fussed. Way Spurs have been playing thus far he won't get any service
 
ajt09 said:
That caught me by surprise too. Heard that he wouldn't be playing today. Either way not really fussed. Way Spurs have been playing thus far he won't get any service
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let alone the service, if he scores Moyes will be frustrated as well as you, the fans.
 
the agreement was that he wouldn't start but could come off the bench (I think anyway)
 
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