Despite recent stumbles, manager is confident ‘the club is getting itself back together’ and his enthusiasm for the job remains intact
D
avid Moyes, face puce with anger and swearing under his breath, did not resemble a man contented in his work as he dissected Everton’s disappointing draw with Wolves. As the first anniversary of his return to Everton approaches, however, that is precisely how Moyes feels. “It has made me go again,” he says of the only job that could have tempted him back to the Premier League frontline.
The 62-year-old has mellowed with the years but his incandescent reaction to Michael Keane’s red card – after Wednesday’s game and when Everton’s appeal was rejected on Friday – showed the fire and fight burn as intensely as ever. There could be more eruptions ahead.
Everton are struggling for form and numbers before Saturday’s FA Cup third-round tie at home to Sunderland. The competition increases in importance with every passing year of the longest trophy drought in Everton’s history and Moyes will be without eight senior players against awkward opponents. The limitations of his squad have been exposed by the recent absences of Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall, Iliman Ndiaye and Idrissa Gueye. Now the suspended Jack Grealish and Keane, Everton’s best defender this season, will also be missing from a team with one win in six games.
