Everton 0 Aston Villa 1: David Moyes’ return to Goodison Park can’t save Toffees from another loss after Watkins strike
MEMORIES were hardly made of this for David Moyes on a night that did nothing to trumpet a re-birth of the Blues.
Not that he didn’t know anyway, but his first game back after almost 12 years away only underlined what a monumental task he faces to keep his beloved Everton in the Premier League.
While opposite number Unai Emery celebrated a first away win after five successive defeats on the road, Moyes had much to chew on after watching the Toffees surrender to a fine 51st minute strike by Ollie Watkins.
Emery was able to celebrate the victory that lifted his side to seventh and a first away clean sheet since April but there was only more Goodison gloom and doom.
No wonder Moyes, just one game into his second stint, looked a worried man.
That’s only one win 12 games and they have got just one goal in the last six.
He declared that his return as Sean Dyche’s predecessor was an opportunity he couldn’t ignore.
But on the evidence of another sub-quality performance, some might say he let his heart rule his head.
The dodgy scarf brigade did a brisk trade in with “Return of Moyes” merchandise outside the ground.
But inside his welcome didn’t exactly suggest the fans were responding to the return of a prodigal son.
There were a few banners around the place and warm enough applause but those supporters weren’t expecting him to walk on water, not with the players Dyche left behind.
The nightmare run Moyes now finds himself locked into tells the s tory of what produced Dyche’s P45 from new owners The Friedkin Group.
But it all fell flat right from the start and Villa should certainly have been one goal ahead and maybe two, within the first 17 minutes.
Earlier in the day, Dyche broke his silence on his sacking a week ago to say he had left them in a “stable” and “good place”.
Dyche had plenty of problems, not least two years of financial crisis during his time in charge, but Everton’s league position – and their start in Moyes’ first game back – made that statement seem delusional.
Morgan Rogers was forcing Jordan Pickford to mark his 300th appearance for the Toffees with a fine deflection by the fifth minute.
Amadou Onana, one of the enforced sales by previous owner Farhad Moshiri to keep the club afloat for £50million, was given a free run but pulled a shot wide.
James Tarkowski made an heroic block to deny Youri Tielemans and then in that 17th minute Ashley Young so nearly gifted one of his former clubs the opener.
Almost on the half-way line, he tried to knock a pass back to Pickford, got it horribly wrong, and Ollie Watkins pounced…. only to show that the confidence built from last season’s 28-goal haul is a memory.
As Pickford advanced towards his England team-mate, the Villa striker, who arrived with just eight strikes from 27 appearances in this campaign lost his cool, shooting too early and wide.
Somehow Everton survived all of that and found a way to produce some problems for Villa.
Abdoulaye Doucoure met a cross from Vitaliy Mykolenko but shot straight at Emi Martinez.
Just before the break Dominic Calvert-Lewin got on the end of a cross from Jack Harrison but unluckily the ball was just behind him.
He made contact but could get no purpose on his shot, his strike rolling slowly forward for Boubacar Kamara to make the easiest ever goal line clearance.
Any Blues bounce from that encouraging final part of the first-half was soon gone.
Watkins profited from exactly the kind of muddled midfield thinking that has dragged the side down so often in the past months.
Rogers picked up on yet another show of sloppiness, powered forward into space and found the striker, who suddenly found his memory loss had suddenly gone.
This time he was the picture of self-belief and composure as he met the pass from the blossoming midfielder.
Watkins let Pickford make his charge, then calmly rolled the ball beyond him to collect the opener that said everything about how much quality he does have.
Cue an increase in the kind of negative noise that Dyche spent so much time listening to, trying to make the best of an increasingly tough situation.
After two years he wouldn’t be blamed for thinking Moyes is welcome to it.