The Very Highest Standards

Some Everton fans find it a little irksome that none of the 10 men who have managed their team since David Moyes left for Manchester United have been called David Moyes

In light of Dyche’s dreadful start to the current campaign, some national newspapers have already chosen to focus on the possible return of Moyes: an outcome that would be more probable if The Toffees actually had someone at the helm able and willing to facilitate such happenings. 

However, in Moyes, Evertonians do currently have a clear and obvious alternative to their under-pressure actual boss Sean Dyche. One particular fan made this point loudly, clearly and expletively to his fellow Upper Gwladys Street Blues at the final whistle of the first game of the season. One can only imagine how forcefully he made his point post-Bournemouth. 

Thanks to the nature of his departure to Manchester United all those years ago, and his subsequent badly-handled pursuit of Leighton Baines and Marouane Fellaini, Moyes’s reputation amongst Evertonians is not as stellar as his ‘achievements’ at Goodison Park probably deserve. ‘Achievements’ self-consciously straddled by inverted commas here to acknowledge the umbrage with which some would take at its use; Everton, you see, should never be a club who settle for fourths, fifths, sixths and sevenths. Achievement at Everton must only ever be measured by firsts.

Those fans less convinced by Moyes, either in the past or the future, doubtless find it a little irksome that none of the 10 men who have managed their team since David Moyes have been called Mikel Arteta or Eddie Howe. 

Both would rank highly in any Everton fan’s dream manager list; both are currently deep into projects that have simultaneously allowed them to carve stellar reputations in the Premier League, and both have Evertonian heritage:

Arteta was Moyes’s magician – the player who, more than any other, helped transform the Scot’s Everton team from his original work-horse iteration (think Alan Stubbs, Lee Carsley and Kevin Kilbane) to a team that was far more befitting of The School of Science (think Leighton Baines, Steven Pienaar and Louis Saha).

Eddie Howe was a young Evertonian who fell in love with football after watching Goodison’s ultimate vintage (think Neville Southall, Trevor Steven and Kevin Sheedy).

In Moyes, Arteta and Howe – in the context of everything that has happened in the past decade – Evertonians are presented with three bona-fide What-Might-Have-Beens. As far as those irked Evertonians are concerned, a series of doors have slid at just the wrong time.

All three men came close to the Goodison Park piping hot seat. All have regularly featured highly in bookies’ lists during vacancy periods. And it’s likely that all three have been in the room with Farhad Moshiri and/or Everton’s previous chairman, the late Bill Kenwright. 

For Moyes, thanks to insights he’s given during recent podcast appearances, we know this to be true three times; for Arteta, he was certainly in the conversation just before his Arsenal appointment, during a transition period that would see both him and Moyes overlooked for Carlo Ancelotti; and for Howe? Well he was high on shortlists considered by the Goodison hierarchy both in the latter days of his Bournemouth reign and during his 18-month holiday between his posts in the South coast and the North-East. 

Irked?

Well, given the jobs all three of those men have done in the last few years – and given that far less suitable candidates like Ronald Koeman, Frank Lampard and Rafa Benitez have actually managed their club instead – then surely ‘positively seething’ would be a more suitable adjectival phrase for how the club’s fan-base feel?

Actually, no.

Firstly, the Evertonian goblet of grief is full to the brim. There’s no room for seething about this relatively gentle sub-topic when the cup already contains gigantic issues like annual relegation battles, unjust (some would say ‘downright disgraceful’) points deductions, and takeover turmoil that often feels existential in consequence. 

Secondly, in reality, given all of the above, it is highly likely that a Moyes, Arteta or Howe reign at Goodison Park at any point in the last 10 years would be over by now. And, in turn, their reputation severely damaged.

All three would have been better Everton managers than any of the men that actually have been Everton managers in the past decade. But it’s likely that none of them would have been strong enough to withstand a set of off-the-field circumstances that recently saw The Athletic label the Blues “The Premier League’s bleakest club”.

The blues indeed.

So, actually yes. ‘Irked’ probably is just about the correct level of adjective here.

Of course, at this moment in time, it would be quite a reach to convince of a scenario in which Mikel Arteta or Eddie Howe are in charge at Everton’s new stadium in Bramley-Moore Dock – a motivating force in spite of everything.

But this is football. There’ve been times in the recent past in which it would have been difficult to convince Aston Villa or Newcastle Utd fans that they would be promoted from the Championship and qualify for the Champions League. And Everton haven’t actually been in the Championship. Not yet at least. 

Even before their terrible start to the season, it felt far from certain that Dyche would be the man to lead Everton into their new stadium. 

They may well decide to revisit their past in order to find somebody to lead them into their future: Moyes would fit that particular short-term bill, and is clearly the most realistic of the three. But longer term, it’s the skillsets of men like Arteta and Howe that should be considered... 

Everton need hope, vision and a positive culture. The current managers of Arsenal and Newcastle Utd would bring all three as standard. Above all, Everton need to think big. 

Arteta and Howe approach their work with long-termism; for Everton, a club that can barely look beyond the end of the next transfer window, such outlooks would be revolutionary. 

Both men are football purists, deep-thinkers and excellent communicators; all qualities valued highly by Evertonians. 

Now could not possibly be the time to think about the appointment of either of them. Arteta’s recent contract extension probably doesn’t even rank in the top five reasons why he couldn’t and wouldn’t return to Everton right now. 

But no matter how tough the times are, how bleak it currently is, Evertonians should never lose sight of where they belong. Things can change quickly in football, and when they do, it is vital that those lucky enough to own Everton aspire for nothing less than the best. 

Evertonians know better than any other set of fans that it’s the hope that kills you. But they also know you must never kill the hope. 

And in Mikel Arteta and Eddie Howe, they must see two beacons, two Evertonians, and two managers of the highest scientific order.

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