David Moyes has described Everton’s move to Hill Dickinson Stadium as the start of a “new romance” but believes the strength of the marriage rests on the success of the team.
Everton’s new £800m stadium stages its first competitive game on Sunday when Brighton visit in the Premier League. Moyes feels it was “written in the stars” that he should be in charge for the historic moment, but insists it is also imperative that the club construct a team worthy of the impressive arena.
“[It is] a new romance. We’ve got a new stadium that we can fall in love with,” he said. “A long marriage has a lot to do with how the team is and what team we put on the pitch over the years to come. Can we make that marriage last with the supporters and everybody at the club? I think that’s the next bit.
‘We’ve built a brilliant stadium, now the job is to try and build a brilliant team and get to a point where we’re more competitive than what we are. I’m quite confident we can do that. It’s a difficult window and it might be a difficult year for us as well but we’ll get the building blocks down and hopefully we can start moving things along.”
Moyes saw two stadium projects fail during his first spell as Everton manager, at Kings Dock and Kirkby, before returning in time for the move from Goodison Park to Liverpool’s waterfront. He admits it will feel fitting to lead Everton into their first league game at Hill Dickinson Stadium.
“To be at any one club for 11 and a half years in the first period takes some doing in any level of football,” he said. “I’ve had a great affiliation with Everton over the years and I’m very fortunate to be back, and it just happens I’m back in time for the new stadium. It could have easily been other great managers who’ve managed this club. But I feel that maybe it was written in the stars in some way that I would get the opportunity to do so.”
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The feelgood factor of the new stadium, however, is in contrast to Moyes’ frustration at missing out on a host of leading transfer targets this summer. “We have really gone for some top players but unfortunately we’ve not been able to get them so we might be finding ourselves coming down the ladder to find players because we are short on numbers,” he said. “We are going to have to adjust.”
