Moyes stirs up rivalry as Everton eye Europe and a derby debut to remember

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There was a gleam in the eye and a barely suppressed grin on Moyes’s face as he ridiculed one of the reasons Slot has presented for the champions’ decline this season.“Absolutely,” said the Everton manager when asked whether he sympathised with Slot’s predicament, just 12 months after he was on the verge of winning the Premier League title in his debut season. But as a coach, I think he’s a top coach.”Moyes has never won at Anfield as a visiting manager and his dig was a little tongue-in-cheek, much like the tifo that the Everton supporters group the 1878s has prepared for the first Merseyside derby to be held at Hill Dickinson Stadium.

Champions League qualification is in Liverpool’s hands but the fact Everton still harbour hope of claiming a European place with six games remaining of the first full season of Moyes’s second spell in charge is testament to their manager’s impact.Moyes has been reluctant to talk up Everton’s prospects of qualifying for Europe this season but he accepts it could have a transformative effect on a club that was accustomed to fighting relegation and Premier League points deductions before he returned 15 months ago. It would be a big thing for us and for our owners and for the new people here to see what Everton Football Club is really like.David Moyes is preparing for Everton’s first game against Liverpool at Hill Dickinson Stadium.

I better keep banging the drum and seeing if I can find a way of getting us a bit higher up as quick as I can.”Moyes was – and still is – stunned by the amount of players who rejected a move to Everton last summer on account of the lack of European football on offer and the club’s poor financial reputation before The Friedkin Group took over and repaired the balance sheet. “I don’t think we can kid ourselves on here, Liverpool have always had a top side,” he said.