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Published on Jan, 19 2025
David Moyes was the youngest manager in the Premier League when he arrived fresh-faced, red-haired at Everton back in March 2002.
Now he stands tall in the same dugout, as he will against Tottenham live on Sky Sports this weekend, as the league's oldest.
"Thirty-nine isn't old anymore, and do you know something? I don't really feel old in my job just now!" he tells Juliette Ferrington as they sit down to catch up on a hectic return to management life.
"I feel quite young. I hope I'm still bursting with energy! There's been some brilliant managers who've worked a lot longer. Sir Alex [Ferguson] was older. I got a message from Sir Alex which was nice.
"I've had an incredible number of messages from so many of the ex-players as well. From Mikel Arteta to Brian McBride to Nikica Jelavic to Tim Howard, you name them.
"It's been great to get messages from them. The hard part is replying to everybody at the moment."
There isn't too much time for pleasantries, however. Moyes has plenty to be getting on with given Everton's precarious position in the table, just a point outside the relegation zone.
Not that Moyes is seeing himself as a firefighter manager drafted in to douse the flames.
"I don't want to ever be thought of as a specialist in avoiding relegation," he begins. "I've had to do it, unfortunately, on a couple of occasions.
"I've been relegated in football myself once, but I'm coming back to a club with great traditions, great history, and I want to try and get it back to where it was."
Everton would perennially punch above their weight in Moyes' first spell as he established a team sprinkled with stardust but built on solid foundations of working the hard yards.
Champions League qualification in 2005 as one of four European campaigns shifted the mindset towards a club that had been fighting relegation dogfights under his predecessors.
With the club moving into a state-of-the-art new stadium this summer, the feeling is that those halcyon days may not be so far away from a return.
Moyes continues: "We've all got great excitement about going to the new stadium, and I think we're all really looking forward to it.
"It was something that, even in those days going back, we were talking about new sites, where could we build a new stadium. So we're now at that point where it's just about to happen, but we've got to make sure we get there as a Premier League club. We're all aware of that."
Barely a week into the job, you can already detect a hoarseness to Moyes' voice.
Hours working on the training ground at Finch Farm in between media commitments and time spent on recruitment during this month has made the past 10 days a whirlwind for the Scot.
"When you've not been working a while, you haven't been using your voice! I've been shouting and preparing so it's taken its toll.
"I think confidence plays a big part in lots of things. We played the other night with a good element of confidence at times. We just didn't, at the magic moments, take it and there were opportunities.
"There wasn't a great deal in the game. But we've got to find that way of making that work happen in our favour. There's enough about us to make it happen. We really want to give the crowd something to shout about."
Evertonians have been starved in this regard.
Attacking productivity remains an issue and has been throughout the entire season. The Toffees have failed to score in nine of the last 11 Premier League games, scoring just five goals with two of those own goals by Craig Dawson in the 4-0 win over Wolves at Goodison Park in early December.
In total, Everton have scored 15 time this term - only Southampton (13) have scored fewer - but Moyes is looking to the future.
In his first spell at the club, he made a name for himself buying players from the Championship or finding bargain buys and making them Premier League stars.
His situation is different at the moment as he needs to find people who can contribute immediately, although that does not mean he will not try to find those rough diamonds.
"We're in the transfer window so we're trying to quickly identify things that can be right for Everton," he says. "It's been a really busy few days.
"I have to say that probably the troubles that I've seen at Everton over the years, it looks as if when the skies are clearing and we're getting a bit better.
"We've still maybe got a little bit to go, and it might just affect a little bit our transfer window, but obviously we're talking about bringing in two or three new players.
"It's got to be right. It's got to be right for Everton and that's why I've always probably taken my time, maybe a little bit longer, to try and hope that I get it right more often. It's my way of going about it.
"We're in a world now where things move much faster, but I always try to get as much right as I could. I think managers live and die by their recruitment. You have to get your recruitment right.
"If you get that right, then you're going to stand a chance of winning more games, probably staying in the job a lot longer. When I was here the first time, we had a really good record of buying players and a lot of them came through and became full internationals."
'I want my Everton to be like Kendall's Cup Winners'
So, what does Everton mean to Moyes? What are the qualities that make an Everton player loved by supporters?
Moyes instantly remembers the European Cup Winners' Cup side of 1985, when Howard Kendall's men triumphed over Rapid Vienna in Rotterdam.
"If you look through the history of Everton, and when I look back to Reidy [Peter Reid], Paul Bracewell, Andy Gray, Sharpie [Graeme Sharp], all those ones, you look at that team, they had something which every Evertonian wanted.
"They wanted their teams to be like that. And I think my time here, I was always trying to be like that. Obviously, it was very difficult.
"They had a great manager in Howard [Kendall] as well. They had great players. But I think back to my period, we had a team in Everton where we were knocking on the door.
"We were trying to qualify for Europe. You know how we did, and I think at the moment, Evertonians would certainly take that.
"The Premier League has become much tougher, much more competitive, harder to be a success. When you look at Aston Villa, they're continually putting in good money every year over the last four, five, six years and are now getting the income of Champions League football.
"They're doing very well. They've also got an outstanding manager. So, I don't think you can get success really in one fell swoop. I think it's a building process. And I think this period, again, is a building process for Everton. I think it will take us a little bit of time to get back.
"But we've got to start making a little bit of progress to get forward and move up the league."
Success is a building process - but Everton must make a start
Moyes accepts that in the short-term, the remaining games this season represents more a 'sticking-plaster job' to preserve the club's top-flight status.
Everton's problems in front of goal this season have not been helped by the form of their attacking players. Those tasked with roles higher up the pitch have scored just nine Premier League goals between them from a total of 148 shots.
Just two players (Dwight McNeil and Iliman Ndiaye) have a positive xG performance while Dominic Calvert-Lewin currently has the worst xG performance of any player in the Premier League (-3.22).
Moyes adds: "You always want to come into a job with an idea of what's it going to look like next year, and then a year after.
"Let's be fair, Everton have probably been in this situation for the last few years. We've probably felt the same, very difficult to look forward when you can really only look at the next game and how you're going to get some points.
"Ideally, you want to prepare and start to build a team which will improve over the years. Sean [Dyche] had a really difficult period and he'd done fantastically well to steer the ship in the right direction, get them over the line when it was needed.
"He'd done a lot of good things for Everton at the time, and I have to say that I didn't expect him to go at the time he did, but by all accounts, I think it was right for both parties."
On the near-misses before Everton return
Moyes is now back where he enjoyed 11 successful years, but the 61-year-old may well have returned sooner at various junctures over the past 12 years.
"There were different times," he admits. "On three occasions I'd met the owners to see if I was coming back. It was once before they took Carlo [Ancelotti].
"It was a couple of days before I'd met them in Germany and so I had it all done at that time and I was coming back. Carlo then got sacked [at Napoli] and they took him at that time.
"But there's been opportunities at different times where I was going to come back. It just didn't quite work out. This was something I always wanted if it ever came back around.
"I've had some opportunities to go back to other clubs this year and I didn't think it was the right time. I wasn't expecting this job at the time. I was hoping that maybe if things had changed in the summer there might have been a consideration for it, but I didn't expect it to come up so soon.
"But it was one that I felt couldn't turn down. I know we've got difficult situations, but it's one I want to be involved in."
So why the urge to come back? What was the pull with Everton?
"I had 11-and-a-half years here. I got to know everybody so well. It generally just felt like a family. My family was so close to it as well.
"My dad was going everywhere, supported by my dad, too much drinking, pubs, different places. My son was here. My wife, we were always involved. We were fully immersed in it completely. Then I left because I felt it was right. I felt I didn't want to overstay my welcome, time to go.
"I had an opportunity to get another big job [at Manchester United]. That was the reason at the time, I think it was right for all parties, I've said it before. But it just felt right.
"If I could come back, I would do it. But obviously I've come back to a completely different Everton to the one I left and I'll probably come back to probably a different David Moyes as well.
"Longevity in football, especially in football management, it's not an easy thing to do. To be a manager who's been in one job for 11-and-a-half years, it's not an easy thing to do.
"I actually think that probably there's greater stresses and pressures on the job. Maybe there's a world out there that wants change a bit quicker than what happened. So, I think there's lots of reasons why I think it'll be harder to go on.
"But my longevity has given me over a thousand games. I've managed different clubs, enjoyed every one of them. And I'll keep it going, but I'm not going to become Roy Hodgson.
"I'm not going to become Neil Warnock and keep going. I don't expect to be doing it for that long."
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