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After the romance of the return, the reality. David Moyes had never given up hope that Everton would summon him back but after the years of dreaming, the three or four times he came close to the job, the night he was told he had it, only to be informed the following morning it was instead going to Carlo Ancelotti, the homecoming lacked the happiness he wanted.
Rather, it reflected the plight that made Everton send for Moyes. Aston Villa arrived at Goodison Park having lost their previous five away league games. They departed with a victory, earned by Ollie Watkins, that took them level on points with Manchester City. Looking upwards at the Champions League places, they are in the territory Moyes’ Everton used to inherit.
When the Scot departed Goodison Park, he feared they had hit a glass ceiling because they kept coming sixth or seventh. Now they are stuck on three league victories this season, all against teams in the bottom third, only one of them in their last 12 games. This is Everton, but not quite as Moyes remembered them.
He is the last great Goodison manager, gone for almost 12 years, his previous game in the home dugout some 4266 days earlier. He returned waving to all four stands, in the manner of a minor royal who was keen not to neglect any of the public.
The Moyesiah was back, albeit without the redoubtable side he forged. Moyes said on Monday he left a “brilliant team” behind. He does not inherit one now. This is a workmanlike group, stripped of creativity. It wasn’t effort Everton lacked against but quality, especially when trailing.
It is a familiar refrain. So, too, the blank in the goals column as Everton failed to score for the ninth time in 11 league outings. They ended with three shots on target, which, if nothing else, was three more than they mustered in Sean Dyche’s final fixture.
In other respects, there were common denominators. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss? Not entirely; an unconvincing attempt to pass out from the back would have been barred by Dyche and there was a little more ambition in a couple of the moves but Moyes’ room for manoeuvre was limited. His was a team Dyche has chosen before, in his 4-4-1-1 formation. The Dychean scoreline of 0-0 can look like Everton’s best chance of a result, Jordan Pickford, who began proceedings with a flying save from Morgan Rogers, their best player.
But Pickford was beaten. Moyes’ first spell in charge began with an Everton goal after 27 seconds, whereas this started with a flurry of shots but from Villa. The opening goal of his initial spell came from David Unsworth, the first of his second from Villa’s Watkins.
It was a redemptive strike. Watkins had shot wide after intercepting Ashley Young’s awful back pass; but a second superb chance was taken, the England international slotting a shot under Pickford after Rogers pierced the Everton defence with his pass. With Jhon Duran back from a ban, Unai Emery’s decision to retain Watkins may not have been easy but it was justified.
And it made for a contrast between the two strikers. Moyes has talked of Dominic Calvert-Lewin putting his goalscoring boots on. Sadly for Everton, he had donned his non-scoring footwear when he blazed over from eight yards in the 93rd minute. A hat-trick of chances were at least proof he had more of a supply line, even as his goal drought extended to a 16th game.
First he angled a half-volley just wide. Then, after Jack Harrison’s dinked cross, he rolled a shot past Emi Martinez, but not beyond Boubacar Kamara, who cleared off the line. Everton remain rooted on a meagre seven goals in open play this season. Martinez, with a low save from Abdoulaye Doucoure, helped secure just Villa’s third clean sheet in 18 matches.
And a side who had won away in Germany more recently than in England could take three points back to the Midlands. It proved a successful return to Goodison for Amadou Onana and Lucas Digne. Just not for Moyes.
