As David Moyes prepares to swap Goodison Park for Old Trafford, DAVID PRENTICE looks back at the good times he brought to the Blues... and remembers how he always had his eye on bigger things

GIVEN his imminent destination, perhaps it was appropriate that my final contact with David Moyes as the Everton manager was a hairdrier-style rant. For two ear-drum mangling minutes he conveyed his concerns, brought storm clouds to a sunny Bank Holiday Monday, left my ears burning, then was done.

Professional demeanour restored. Poise re-established. Normal service resumed.

He had a point – and he was well within his rights to kick-off – but that’s for another day.

Because maybe, just maybe, he was also practising for the role he is about to inherit.

If so, he’s been practising for this moment ever since he first stepped over the Goodison threshold.

When Wayne Rooney – wrongly – accused the Everton manager of breaching personal confidences to this newspaper in the last days of his all-too-brief Goodison career, Moyes took it badly.

So badly, in fact, he successfully sued his former charge.

It was a significant step for a manager to take against a player who was pretty much English football’s hottest property at the time.

But Moyes had his reasons – and he was unshakeable in his resolve.

Alex Ferguson actually called him into his private office after a match at Old Trafford and tried to talk him out of dropping the case against a player who then wore red.

But Moyes was steadfast.

His reasons were several.

Obviously he wanted his integrity and his honour preserved.

But that wasn’t his primary motivation.

As the journalist who had allegedly been briefed by Moyes about Rooney (I hadn’t), I was offered a privileged insight into his thought processes during a series of meetings with him and his legal team.

Sure, he wanted his deserved reputation as an honest and straight-dealing manager intact.

But more importantly he didn’t want a ‘big’ club like Manchester United to believe he was incapable of handling ‘big name’ players.

Six years ago, when David Moyes was still a relatively new Everton manager, he already had designs on the very biggest jobs of all.

Now he’s landed not just the biggest job in British football, but one of the biggest on Planet Football.

Is he up to it?

There’s no shadow of a doubt in my mind.

The bookies had it as a head to head between Moyes and Mourinho, which in terms of managerial achievement was a no contest.

Mourinho is immensely gifted, enormously charismatic and undoubtedly the best manager in European football.

But he is capricious. And Manchester United have been the model of managerial stability for nearly three decades.

It is a model Everton have mimicked.

During 11 years at Goodison Park Moyes has proved he is a stayer, a constant, a figure of stability.

After 26 years managed by one Scottish rock, the Old Trafford hierarchy clearly didn’t want a magical but mercurial fly-by-night.

They wanted a manager who has proved he can stick around.

They wanted a manager who has much of the man he is about to replace already in his DNA.

They wanted Everton’s manager.

The saddest, most dispiriting aspect of the entire affair is that when Alex Ferguson took over at Old Trafford 26 years ago, Everton were actually a more successful football club than their North-West rivals.

They had won eight league titles to United’s seven, and were on their way to a ninth.

But while United’s board had a long-term vision for their stadium and their squad, Everton were on the brink of a period of fatal fragmentation.

New owners – three of them – a succession of managers and a marked lack of any long-term vision led to David Moyes taking over a club which still had a grand old name in English football, but precious little else to offer another ambitious, driven young Scottish boss.

He overcame those shortcomings to transform a club which had fallen by the wayside.

He put Everton back into contention.

And he gave Everton back their pride.

The one thing missing, of course, was a trophy.

And that rankled with some.

For some fans, familiarity has bred contempt.

The “He’s got red hair . . .” chants have not been as frequent, not been as spontaneous or not been as enthusiastic this season.

Some Evertonians – a minority, but not an insignificant number – complain that Moyes “bottles” big matches.

To explain that criticism more clearly, they claim that an overly cautious attitude leads him to fall short in matches where it matters most . . . an FA Cup final, an FA Cup semi-final, a League Cup semi-final, any match at Anfield, the Emirates, Stamford Bridge or Old Trafford.

It’s an argument I regularly counter. And it’s clearly an argument which the Old Trafford hierarchy hasn’t listened to.

Because before David Moyes arrived Everton weren’t usually in a position to contemplate ‘big’ matches.

Joe Royle successfully negotiated several in the second half of 1995, including one of the biggest in domestic football, a Cup Final.

But in the seven years that followed, the biggest matches Evertonians enjoyed were two matches which would have resulted in relegation had they been lost, and a couple of FA Cup quarter-finals, both lost.

Moyes’ transformation of Everton Football Club was dramatic.

Seventeenth, 14th 13th, 16th and 15th place finishes were replaced by 7th, 4th, 11th, 6th, 5th, and 5th – the one blip being an end of season slide in 2004 when he learned plenty about Premier League footballers’ mindsets.

Even better for Manchester United, he is still learning.

Everton’s style of play under Moyes has evolved to a point where this season – certainly before Christmas – they were playing some of the most sparkling, dashing stuff in the top division. Suggestions that Moyes knew the time to move on had come and as a result was more cavalier, more free in his thinking are unfair.

As a manager David Moyes is nothing if not supremely professional.

Even last night, with news of his departure imminent, he was reported to be heading down to London to watch Everton’s final day opponents, Chelsea.

His exit will leave a cavernous hole in Everton Football Club.

Some believe a change is needed after several seasons of knocking their head against the glass ceiling of the top four.

I’m not so sure.

But change has been forced upon the Everton of 2013 – a vastly different club to the Everton of 2002.

The Blues don’t just need a new David Moyes. They need a manager who can build on his platform and take the club even further.

Does such a boss exist?

Roberto Marinez was courted by Liverpool before they opted for Brendan Rodgers.

But while he plays a brand of football which will find favour amongst Everton traditionalists/purists, he has also lost 70 of his 150 matches in charge of the Latics.

And while the first objective for an incoming manager is usually to organise a reliable defensive unit, Wigan’s defending – four years after Martinez’s arrival – in a match which could finally seal the Latics’ relegation this week was shambolic.

Michael Laudrup? A lovely thought, but could Bill Kenwright convince him to leave a club where he is already feted as a hero?

Phil Neville? It would take a wild leap of faith to expect a model professional to become a success in his first managerial role.

It would be a major surprise if Everton already have a successor in waiting. But David Moyes has been a Manchester United manager in-waiting for years.

The very fact that one of the biggest clubs in Europe wants his services is confirmation of the loss Everton have suffered.

Where they go next could dictate what the next 11 years has in store ...