From the minute he shows his face in the technical area at the Stadium of Light on Monday night, I hope we make David Moyes’ life a complete misery for the ninety or so minutes he’s forced to find himself surrounded by Mackems.
I don’t think it would be fair to pin the blame entirely on him for Sunderland’s demise after he oversaw our relegation to the Championship the last time that we were in the Premier League — the majority of that can be attributed to our former owner, Ellis Short — but he did
have a large part in it, and certainly didn’t help matters when he only added to the depression and misery surrounding the football club at that time.
The fact he’s gone on since then to win a trophy with West Ham and keep getting himself Premier League jobs annoys me massively, as it feels as though he got away with leaving Sunderland in the mess that he did.
That said, I don’t want the entire story of the day to be about him. I’m sure that when the pundits on Sky are previewing the match in the hour or so before kick off they will make it all about Moyes, but once that first ball has been kicked, we’ll have to shift the focus to the team and their fantastic start to the season in the Premier League.
The story all season to this point has been about our brilliant players and their journey, and the relationship between them and the fans has been the key to our success.
If we are going to beat Everton, then it needs to be more of the same — we need to fight with them for every second ball, every header, and every loose pass. When the ball rolls out for a throw-in or corner, we need to cheer as loudly as we have in other games this season at the Stadium of Light.
Our formula for winning games on Wearside is proven — if the atmosphere is fierce and the players match the energy of the crowd, Everton won’t be able to live with us. Every game has a special feeling about it right now, and we’ve got unbelievable momentum, so let’s not slip and let’s stay focused on the task at hand. If we score another three points, we’ll be right up there at the top of the table, and deservedly so.
The best way to show David Moyes how past it and irrelevant he is is to show him what he failed to recognise when he was here before — that this is a superb football club, the best, in fact, with a manager and squad who recognise just how brilliant an opportunity this is for them all… an appetite for success which Moyes never for one second demonstrated during his time as Sunderland manager all those years ago.
The Sunderland of 2025 is a club built on strong foundations, with good people on and off the pitch who only have one goal — to make Sunderland as great as they possibly can, on a level that a loser like David Moyes could only dream of reaching. Win, lose, or draw on Monday, that will remain the case.
