David Moyes is set for an emotional return to the club that shaped his career as Everton travel to Preston North End in the Carabao Cup. The game will be a poignant affair for the 63-year-old, who ended his playing career at Deepdale before rising to manage the club.
Ahead of the game, the Scot reflected on the “brilliant” platform the club offered him - and on his discussions with Sir Tom Finney, one of England’s greatest players and a Preston legend.
Cup ambitions at Everton
Moyes will have little room for sentiment when he takes Everton north for the second round tie. Blues chief executive Angus Kinnear made clear on the eve of the season that Moyes was expected to take the cup competitions seriously as the club seeks to end a trophy drought that will extend to 32 years if there is no success this season.
For Moyes, too, the competition represents an opportunity to add to his Everton legacy given he is in the final year of his current deal at Hill Dickinson Stadium, with no discussions over his future having yet taken place.
Preston memories
Preparations for his task will be tinted by fond memories, though, given his deep association with Preston. Moyes’ first act as Preston boss was to save the club from relegation to Division Three in 1998. He then led the club to promotion to the second tier and took them within 90 minutes of the Premier League, only to suffer heartbreak in the play-off final to Bolton Wanderers in 2001. The following year he moved to Everton for the first of his two stints with the Blues.
Looking back, Moyes said: “Preston was a brilliant job for me and I have a lot of thanks to the chairman there and the people behind it, Bryan Gray, Derek Shaw, who were incredibly supportive. We went through the leagues and only lost in the play-off final to Big Sam’s [Allardyce’s] Bolton to get in the Premier League.
“It was a brilliant experience for me and I would be recommending to all the young coaches that you are better to go earn your stripes and try and find a way through the leagues than being thrown in where it is difficult at the start. I was really fortunate that I had been a player there, assistant manager or coach as well and when I got the job I had a little bit of knowledge of the club that maybe the players needed and it was a great learning experience. A brilliant club to go to.”
Sir Tom Finney conversations
Moyes did not see Finney’s playing days but spoke of him with admiration as he detailed the conversations they shared.
He said: “The thing about Preston was that Sir Tom Finney was the pillar and still is and he used to come in and have a cup of tea with me on a Friday before a game and talk with me in the early days. He was legendary and still is. He was the pillar of how I see Preston.
“He was incredibly positive and I could have said, ‘tomorrow I’m playing 4-4-2’ and he would have said ‘yeah’ but the biggest things I used to ask him about was that he was renowned for beating players.
“I remember asking about it and he’d say: ‘Well, they’d over-cover on one side and I would just take them on on the other.’ We are talking about him and Stanley Matthews competing with one another to be the best players at the time in the UK.
He said: ‘They’d try and kick me and I would just ride the tackle.’ It was as if none of it bothered him, he had an answer to whatever the defenders used to do against him. He was great that way. Obviously, I didn’t see him play, just a few clips, I was too young, but he was a great man and a big thing for Preston.”
