Everton 0 Aston Villa 1: David Moyes’ return to Goodison Park can’t save Toffees from another loss after Wa…
Ken Lawrence
5 – 6 minutes
Scroll down to watch Watkins’ goal
Published: 21:23, 15 Jan 2025
Updated: 21:28, 15 Jan 2025
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.
Ollie Watkins of Aston Villa scores a goal against Everton.
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Ollie Watkins scored his ninth goal this season with a clever finishCredit: Getty
Ollie Watkins of Aston Villa celebrates a goal.
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Villa have won their last three gamesCredit: Getty
David Moyes, Everton manager, reacts during a soccer match.
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David Moyes’ second spell in charge of Everton got off to a bad startCredit: Getty
While opposite number Unai Emery celebrated a first win away from Villa Park 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 Apri but there was only more Goodison gloom and doom
No wonder Moyes, jusrt one game into his second stint, looked a worried man.
That’s only one win 12 twleve games and one point and one goal in the last six.
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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 “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, true, but those supporters weren’t expecting him to walk on water, not with the players Sean Dyche left behind.
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Everton vs Aston Villa match stats infographic.
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The nightmare run Moyes now finds himself locked into telles the story of what produced Sean Dyche’s P45 from new owners The Friedkin Group.
Even American billionaire Dan Friedkin’s appointment as executive chairman was wearing a blue scarf, over his smart suit, Marc Watts having flown in for the occasion.
But it all fell flat and 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 for the first time since his sacking a week ago to say he had left the squad in a “stable” place and that the club was “in a 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, at £50M in the summer one of the enforced sales by previous owner Farhadf Moshiri to keep the club afloat, was given a free run but pulled wide.
James Tarkowski made an heroic block to deny Youri Tielemans and then in that 17th minute Ashley Young, once a Villa favourite, so nearly gifted one of his former clubs the opener.
Almost on the half – way line he tried to knock back to Pickford, got it horribly wrong, and Ollie Watkins pounced….only to dash forward and 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 criss from Vitalii 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 for the front man 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 tro make the easiest – ever goal line clearance.
Any Blues bounce from that encouraging final part of the first half was soon gone.
For 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,
He let Pickford make his charge, then calmly rolled the ball beyond him to collect the collect the opener that said everything about how much quality he does have.
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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 bad job.
After two years he wouldn’t be blamed for thinking Moyes is welcome to it – and that he’sm well out of it.
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