Can Moyes do it again?

David Moyes is seeking to relive his Everton days but it looks a long way off at Sunderland, writes Adam Bate.

Everton’s visit to Sunderland for Monday Night Football pits the Black Cats boss against his former club, but it could be a more wistful moment for the home supporters. This was the fixture they won 3-0 in May to secure Premier League survival. Trouble averted.

Sunderland picked up 27 points in the second half of the season. Replicate that over a full campaign and they’d have finished ninth – a position the club hasn’t reached in well over a decade. Only the top two and defending champions Chelsea lost fewer games in 2016.

Sam Allardyce was the driving force behind this upturn in fortunes. Lee Cattermole, Sunderland’s longest-serving player, spoke of how he “fills you with confidence” and “makes you believe”. The noises from successor David Moyes are already somewhat gloomier.

Once again, just three games in, Sunderland are struggling. Any momentum has been lost by a complicated summer that saw Allardyce take up the England job in late July and Moyes only arrive after the club’s rivals were already well ahead in conducting their transfer business.

An injury list emblematic of this period of disruption has made a fast start all but impossible. Sebastian Larsson and Fabio Borini are out for the long term. Wahbi Khazri looks short of match fitness, while Cattermole and Jan Kirchhoff have yet to feature.

Goalkeeper Vito Mannone has a serious injury and Joe Hart’s subsequent rejection was one of many. In a transfer window in which the club was thwarted time and again, the closest thing to a coup was keeping disgruntled Lamine Kone from joining Monday’s opponents.

It’s got supporters who’d hoped for better now steeling themselves for a scrap. When put to Moyes that they’ll be fearing another relegation battle, he said: “Well, they would probably be right because that’s where they’ve been every other year for the last four years.

“Why would it suddenly change? I think it will be. I don’t think you can hide the facts. That will be the case, yes. People will be flat because they are hoping that something is going to dramatically change. It can’t dramatically change. It can’t.”

It’s not exactly inspirational but then Moyes isn’t a quick-fix manager, what the Italians refer to as a traghettatore – a ‘ferryman’ coach who’ll see the club through a brief storm. He’s a builder. One still smarting that his six-year contract at Manchester United was torn up.

That United disappointment is one of two jobs that Moyes has had since, but it’s to …

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