The impact Everton manager David Moyes has made on the Goodison Park team can be measured by recalling the last time they played Middlesbrough in the FA Cup quarter-finals.
A 3-0 defeat in March 2002 signaled the end for Moyes’ predecessor Walter Smith. Everton, 15th with just one win from 13 Premier League games, were left to face another relegation fight.
Fast forward seven years and the Merseyside club approach the first FA Cup quarter-final of the Scot’s reign at home to Boro tomorrow on the back of only one defeat in 16 matches.
PHOTO: EPA
Manchester United manager Alex Ferguson described Everton in January as “the Premier League’s big success story of the last five years” and for that Moyes, his team on course for their fourth top-six finish during that period, must take a lot of credit.
Four days after Everton’s 2002 surrender at the Riverside, Moyes stepped inside Goodison and set about lifting the gloom.
“He came in as quite a young manager and I felt immediately that he was ambitious,” former Everton midfielder Niclas Alexandersson said. “To get the spirit out of players, you need to have that spirit yourself — being ambitious as a coach helps give that to players as well.”
After averting the threat of relegation, a hungry Moyes guided Everton to seventh in the Premier League the following season, setting a template for future achievement.
“He wanted to work very hard himself and the training he had was the best I experienced in England,” ex-Swedish international Alexandersson said. “Every session was very good and he got the most out of his players.”
Moyes’ transformation of Everton’s fortunes is no surprise to Paul McKenna, captain of Preston North End, the first club the Scot managed.
Moyes lifted Preston from the lower reaches of the third tier to the Championship (second division) play-off final in 28 months and McKenna said his “attention to detail” was second to none.
“We didn’t have the best players, but everyone knew their jobs inside out,” McKenna said.
Moyes, a journeyman center-half in his playing days, has turned Everton into one of the toughest Premier League sides to break down.
“That was his line of expertise and he always had the defense well-drilled and the midfielders well-drilled in defensive areas. That is what he’s got Everton doing and that is why they are so successful,” McKenna said.
According to former Everton winger Pat Nevin, Moyes is a born leader.
Nevin, now a BBC analyst, was a teenage hopeful with Moyes at Celtic boys’ club in the late 1970s.
“Not only was he captain material, he was, even at that young age of 14, 15, 16, a manager then. At that age you are wrapped up in yourself, but he was interested in the team, in the betterment of other individuals,” Nevin said.
Nevin remembers one Sunday afternoon when Moyes came to watch his team play and he found “these piercing blue eyes” gazing in his direction after he sidestepped a 50-50 challenge.
“We’d won and I’d scored a few goals, but he led me to one side and said: ‘If I ever see you doing that again, you are guts for garters,’” Nevin said. “He said I was smaller than other players and if I showed any fear they’d see that and use it against me. He actually played for another team, but had made the effort to come along and watch and stay behind to tell someone where he had gone wrong.”
Nevin believes Moyes’ upbringing in Glasgow instilled in him “integrity” and a “deep inability to cope with the concept of defeat.”
The latter trait prompts comparisons with fellow Glaswegian Ferguson and Moyes shares similar levels of intensity, although his approach has mellowed.
“I feel more relaxed now, but maybe that comes with experience and being in the job a bit longer,” Moyes told reporters last season.
Moyes’ skills as a tactician have shone through this term when he has had to cope with the loss of key forward players.
The other factor in his success story is time.
Everton stuck with him after they slumped to 17th in his second full season and again when a Champions League qualifying loss to Villarreal sparked a run of seven defeats in their first eight league games of 2005-2006.
Moyes has steadily improved the quality of his squad. His inspired signings include midfield trio Mikel Arteta, Tim Cahill and Steven Pienaar for a combined £6 million (US$8.49 million), although the injured Arteta is out for the season.
Carlos Alcaraz on Monday powered into the French Open second round with a resounding win to start his title defense, while world No. 1 Jannik Sinner and three-time defending women’s champion Iga Swiatek also progressed at Roland Garros. Four-time Grand Slam champion Alcaraz struck 31 winners in a 6-3, 6-4, 6-2 victory over Italian qualifier Giulio Zeppieri and is to face Hungary’s Fabian Marozsan in round two. Alcaraz is now on an eight-match winning streak at the French Open and also took Olympic silver at Roland Garros last year, losing the final to Novak Djokovic. “The first round is never
FRUSTRATION: Alcaraz made several unforced errors over four sets against Bosnian Damir Dzumhur, who had never made it past the third round in a major competition Defending champion Carlos Alcaraz reached the fourth round of the French Open after laboring past Damir Dzumhur 6-1, 6-3, 4-6, 6-4 in the Friday night session. The second-seeded Spaniard had never before played Dzumhur, a 33-year-old Bosnian who had never been past the third round at any major tournament. “I suffered quite a lot today,” Alcaraz said. “The first two sets was under control, then he started to play more deeply and more aggressively. It was really difficult for me.” Dzumhur hurt his left knee in a fall in the second round, and had treatment on Friday on his right leg during the
‘DREAM’: The 5-0 victory was PSG’s first Champions League title, and the biggest final win by any team in the 70-year history of the top-flight European competition Paris Saint-Germain won the Champions League for the first time as Luis Enrique’s brilliant young side outclassed Inter on Saturday in the most one-sided final ever with teenager Desire Doue scoring twice in an astonishing 5-0 victory. Doue supplied the pass for Achraf Hakimi to give PSG an early lead and the 19-year-old went from provider to finisher as his deflected shot doubled the advantage in the 20th minute. Doue scored again just after the hour mark, ending any doubt about the outcome before Khvicha Kvaratskhelia ran away to get the fourth and substitute Senny Mayulu, another teenager, made it five. Inter were
The horn sounded on Wednesday night to signal a third straight trip to the Stanley Cup Final, as the Florida Panthers celebrated merely by hopping over the boards and several heading over to congratulate goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky. It was a subdued celebration seemingly more befitting a regular-season win for the reigning Cup champs. “I remember a few years ago, it felt like such an accomplishment from where we were at one point,” forward Matthew Tkachuk said, adding: “It’s all business and we’ve got a bigger goal in mind.” The Panthers closed out the Carolina Hurricanes in five games, with a 5-3 victory in
RSS