A sad regression for all concerned

Submitting this article slightly later than I'd have liked, although perhaps the homecoming defeat on Wednesday night puts an even more negative tint on any cynicism regarding his homecoming.....

In 2013, David Moyes left Everton for, in his own words, “better things”.

For their part, Everton, following Moyes’s departure, were also hoping for someone to take them to the proverbial next level.

That they’ve both come back to each other 12 years later – I’m not sure how I feel about this. How has it come to this? For both parties?

Well, for a while, the latter – Everton going to the next level with another manager – looked by far the more likely to happen.

The season immediately after Moyes’s departure, Martinez improved the playing squad, , the quality of the football on display and, most crucially, the results – all while keeping the usual (for the time) negative net spend. Prior to this, it was always felt that, unless we were to go on a spending spree, deviating away from the pragmatic, percentage approach of his predecessor would mean sacrificing results. So to achieve the trifecta of improving all three in such a short space of time really was, to use one of the Spaniard’s favourite words, amazing.

Combined with the misfortunes of our former manager at Old Trafford, both on the pitch and in the lack of positive activity in the transfer market, and, after years of narrative that Moyes was some sort of super-manager, that no other boss could have achieved the consistent respectable league finishes with plucky little Everton – for one stupidly glorious season, it actually looked as though the opposite might apply, and that Moyes’s cautious approach had actually been holding us back.

The reality was possibly somewhere in between, and this reality hit home the following year. Our 72 points in Martinez’s first season had been in no small part thanks to the defensive unit that Moyes had assembled and spent years coaching. Once Sylvain Distin aged out, as he did during the latter part of 2014, the game was up.

Even at the other end, opponents had grown wise to our flowing attacking game and found ways to stifle it.  What’s more, Martinez’s first transfer window turned out to be, like everything else during his first season, an outlier. The overall quality of the squad began to deteriorate and the team began to regress.

Even so, Moyes’s reputation was depleted, and Everton’s still intact, as evidenced after Moshiri’s takeover and Martinez’s dismissal in 2016, when Moyes, now also ousted by Real Sociedad, was heavily linked to a return, only to see the big globally recognised name of Ronald Koeman take the Goodison hotseat.

Then, in 2017, while Moyes was finishing bottom of the Premier League with Sunderland, relegated for the first (and I hope only!) time in his managerial career, Everton enjoyed a solid first season under Koeman, with European football to look forward to in 2017-18 and an influx of expensive new signings to get excited about.

That would prove as good as it got for Everton and as bad as it got for Moyes. As Koeman, and a catalogue of other managers (with the possible exception of Ancelotti), floundered on the pitch, and the club was hit with Profitability and Sustainability penalties off it, Moyes was enjoying a renaissance during two spells at West Ham, taking them to a European trophy and seeing his stock rise once again.

Moyes and Everton were back on level terms. They were once again a match.

Had he returned prior to his time at West Ham, I believe there would have been far greater cause for concern. In addition to the disastrous outcome of relegation, the most surprising aspect of his time at Sunderland, for me, was his reliance on signing former Everton and Manchester United players he’d previously worked with – it was one thing when his coaching no longer produced results, and now the meticulous approach to recruitment, the eye for a bargain player, the extensive scouting, all seemed to have been lost.

However, it’s fair to say, at West Ham, he got his mojo back, in every aspect of his management. Those who read my “This week….” articles may remember that I had plenty negative to say about Moyes, yet even I was pleased to see him doing so well there, recapturing the spirit and relative success that seemed to have eluded him for almost a decade.

He could argue to have been further vindicated by the subsequent continuing misfortunes of some of his former clubs. I can’t speak for Real Sociedad, but certainly the mess Manchester United have been in, and Sunderland’s double-dip relegation after he left, suggest that the problems at these clubs ran a lot deeper than whatever mistakes he may have made during less than a year in charge at each.

His time at West Ham showed that he still has something to offer, and that, in the right circumstances, at the right club, he can still thrive. The question is, are these the right circumstances? And are we the right club? That's a big question that will have to be discussed in a separate article. Or in the comments section here. 

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