THE glint of a scythe flickered behind David Moyes in his return to Everton yesterday.
It was only a supporter dressed up as the Grim Reaper to celebrate the demise of Manchester United as a Champions League team, but a few performances like this one next season could spell the end for the Scot as manager at Old Trafford.
Post-match, he accused his side of "rank rotten" defending after Everton had strolled to an easy 2-0 victory. Moyes was barracked by the crowd throughout, and it was grimmer on the pitch as his team suffered their 11th defeat of a pitiful season.
Phil Jones blocked Romelu Lukaku's shot with his outstretched arm and Leighton Baines converted the resulting penalty before Alex Buttner played Kevin Mirallas onside and the Belgian beat David de Gea from a tight angle.
Moyes tried to put a positive spin on what was a dreadful defeat, but he did not hold back when giving his assessment of his team's defending for both goals. "I thought the two goals we conceded today were rank rotten," the United manager said.
"The [first] goal was a big kick up the pitch, it was nodded down and picked up, and for us to concede a goal like that was terrible. The second was a better move but we should have defended it much better that we did.
"We gave away two terrible goals but prior to that we passed the ball brilliantly, kept the ball, had great control of the game. What we couldn't do is make enough chances, but we had great control and we got done by two stupid decisions."
The result and the performances of both sides showed just how much United have regressed under Moyes and how far Everton have come under his successor Roberto Martinez, who has now collected a record 20 league wins since moving to Goodison Park. United tested Tim Howard on just two occasions while Everton outmuscled and outclassed their opponents in midfield. Wayne Rooney had a disappointing afternoon in front of goal while Lukaku caused Jonny Evans and Jones problems throughout. Moyes, surprisingly, thought his team did not play too badly.
"We played well in the first half," he said. "I didn't think we deserved to go in 2-0 down at half-time."
Martinez, who became the first Everton manager to do the double over United in 44 years, hailed the performance as "electrifying".
"This was an important win for our fans," said the Spaniard. "That tells you this group of players is ready to develop. That performance was full of energy, it was dynamic on the counterattack. I thought we looked electrifying."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article