When David Moyes set off on his commute home yesterday, he was greeted by the scene of hundreds of fans lining the country road out of their Finch Farm training base.
The sun helped, of course, as did the fact the schools are on holidays – but this was the busiest the lane has been for some years and it painted a perfect picture of David Moyes’s Everton 2.0.
A happy place. A building populated by smiley faces. A squad of players who are once again the subject of autograph and selfie hunters rather than angry fans wanting to scapegoat them for sub-par performances.
This is a world away from the club Moyes walked back into in January, 100 days ago this week.
He was pumped for the challenge ahead but, after his first match, Moyes sat in the media room at Goodison Park – the sort of space that feels cramped even when empty – and puffed out his cheeks, looking like a man thinking: ‘What on earth have I let myself into?’
What he said was even more telling. ‘I am not a magician,’ he admitted.
David Moyes has turned around Everton’s season since his appointment in January
In the 12 league games since that defeat to Aston Villa, though, he has lost just once
Everton fans gathered in their hundreds to greet Moyes and players this week
In the 12 league games since that defeat to Aston Villa, though, he has lost just once. So maybe he is a magician after all.
When he took over, Everton were one point clear of the relegation zone. In the 10 games before that, they had won just once and failed to score in eight of those matches.
This was their last season at the Grand Old Lady and it felt like Everton were sleepwalking to relegation. It is hard to put into words just how disastrous – emotionally and financially – it would have been for the club to begin life at their swanky new dockside stadium in the Championship.
This was a distinct possibility and, for a city and fanbase that lives and breathes football, the worry of the Toffees being relegated was causing genuine health effects for some supporters.
Former manager Sean Dyche does deserve credit, mind. He took over a club on the slide and steadied the ship, replacing Frank Lampard in January 2023 and keeping them up on the final day against Bournemouth.
The ex-Burnley boss then led them to safe ground last year when two points deductions threatened to derail the season. Fair play to him but fans and new owners, The Friedkin Group, wanted and deserved more. They wanted change.
And what a change it has been.
‘Everyone in here wants to have a smiley face,’ said Moyes. ‘Everyone wants success and to get better. Once you get that, it changes the mood completely. If you’re losing lots of games, it is difficult – everyone takes their lead from the manager.
Former Toffees manager Sean Dyche does deserve credit for the position Everton are in
Everton were sleepwalking to relegation ahead of their move to Bramley-Moore next season
Moyes says the mood around the Everton camp has ‘completely’ changed in recent months
‘If you’re losing, you’re a miserable bugger. At the moment we are winning and I am happy.
‘I have said many times, Dychey did an unbelievable job to keep the club up. But it was a club needing a jolt to get it going again. You could see that with the supporters, everyone, even you boys (the media). It was probably difficult to find positive things to write about Everton.’
Before he got the call from Everton to come back, Moyes was not actively desperate to return to management. He was doing technical advisory work for UEFA and enjoying family time after leaving West Ham.
A few Premier League clubs expressed interest in appointing him but Everton were the only team that could tempt him out of semi-retirement. He had unfinished business and always wanted to return – he got close to doing so several times in the past but it never worked out.
One of his first jobs was to improve the mood.
Club legend Leighton Baines is said to have been influential in this process. The former left back, who was managing Everton’s Under 18s, has been a soundboard for the dressing room who go to him and club captain Seamus Coleman.
The Irishman is out of contract this summer and, having played just four times this season, faces an uncertain future. But Moyes is open to the idea of welcoming Coleman, who signed for just £60,000 from Sligo Rovers in 2008, on to his coaching team if he does retire from playing.
Baines and Coleman took charge of an FA Cup game against Peterborough when Dyche was sacked just hours before kick-off. Moyes has joked how he once showed Coleman around the building and now the roles were reversed, but the pair have been influential figures.
Leighton Baines (right) is said to have been influential in the process of improving the mood
Club legend Seamus Coleman is out of contract this summer and his future is in doubt
There has been much less negative noise leaking from dressing-room sources since Moyes’s return. He sets the standards in terms of discipline and behaviour – everyone has bought into it and is happier.
Moyes also appointed Charlie Adam as set-piece coach to join his team alongside Billy McKinlay, who was at Anfield last weekend running the rule over West Ham, and Alan Irvine. As a Scouser, Baines is the odd one out in a coaching team dominated by Glaswegians.
After changing the mood, Moyes needed to alter the playing style. Off came the handbrake and in came a desire to ‘get bums off seats’. Full backs, including rookie Jake O’Brien, have more licence to attack and the attackers have added creative freedom.
All of this without, arguably, Everton’s first-choice front three. Dwight McNeil, the best player until a knee injury in November, has only just returned – with an assist at the weekend no less – while Iliman Ndiaye and Dominic Calvert-Lewin have spent time sidelined, too.
The first 100 days have gone extremely well – better than anyone including Moyes could have dreamed for – so what about the next?
Everton have just three matches left at Goodison, starting with Saturday’s visit of Manchester City. The last one, against Southampton, will hopefully be a showpiece occasion on TV with strong talk that it will be played at midday on the Sunday of the penultimate weekend.
Moyes is a superstitious being and did not want to go to the new stadium at Bramley-Moore Dock until Premier League survival was closer – but he finally went this Wednesday, which shows his belief in the group.
He loved the ‘bowl’ of the new stadium and imagined the atmosphere it will generate. The pitch is to be relaid soon which will prevent Moyes from taking the first team there for a couple of training sessions at the end of this campaign but this is something he plans in pre-season.
Moyes was at Derby’s Pride Park last week to watch loanee Harrison Armstrong (pictured)
decisions will be made made over Idrissa Gana Gueye and Abdoulaye Doucoure futures
A big summer awaits in the transfer market with new owners, The Friedkin Group, primed to splash some cash but in a more measured approach than the previous regime of Farhad Moshiri that saw the club overspend and ultimately be punished for doing so.
The boss has already been checking some targets out with some scouting missions. He was at Derby’s Pride Park last week to watch loanee Harrison Armstrong, regarded by many as the best academy talent, and he will be given a chance to impress on a pre-season tour of the US.
Moyes and the club remain insistent that they will not be bullied into selling key asset Jarrad Branthwaite, though many top clubs remain keen after Manchester United’s failed attempt last summer.
The manager sees a lengthy international career awaiting for the defender. If he does leave, he will take a fee of around £75million which is healthy for the club, making his future a win-win situation. There is an option in his contract to trigger an extension, too, further adding value.
Plenty of players remain out of contract so the summer could see plenty head for the exit door, with decisions to be made over several important – but ageing – midfielders like Idrissa Gana Gueye and Abdoulaye Doucoure.
Dominic Calvert-Lewin is another out of contract while experienced defender Michael Keane has suitors around Europe, Saudi Arabia and the United States.
But one of the main things Moyes will continue to strive for in the remainder of this season going into the summer and beyond is ambition.
The boss regularly talks about wanting Everton to be in the European places in the future. He has not come back for relegation scraps or even to settle with mid-table mediocrity.
One stick used to poke Dyche was his public addresses in this regard, where fans lambasted him for dampening expectations when he said, for example, the final season at Goodison should not magically mean Everton are not relegation battlers.
But now the Toffees are out of their prolonged sticky patch and only looking up. As Moyes said: ‘If you said to me we would be avoiding relegation when I came in, I would have said, “Thanks very much”. But now I want the club to feel even better, I want everyone to feel better.’
