David Moyes hopes he can rekindle the magic from Jack Grealish and cites Jesse Lingard as an example of how he has proven he can do it. Everton kick-off their campaign on Monday at Leeds with loan signing Grealish in contention for his debut.
The Manchester City and England midfielder has fallen out of favour with boss Pep Guardiola and played only 715 Premier League minutes last season. But now he’s joined Everton looking to get back to his best with the World Cup coming next summer. Moyes is hoping he can do what he did with Lingard, when he signed him on loan from Manchester United at West Ham in 2021 which saw the player find form and earn an England recall.
The Everton boss said: “I think we are all saying there is a Jack Grealish who played for Aston Villa, there’s one who played for Manchester City, one we’ve seen playing for England and along the line there he is playing for arguably the best manager in the world. So I take his thoughts as well but I have to find ways of getting the best out of players as well.
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“Jesse Lingard is an example. If we can get him to be as successful as that this year it would be great. Without putting all the pressure on Jack, and I think he carries a lot of pressure anyway because of who he is and what he is, I think he’s got a wee bit where he has to prove one or two people (wrong) as well. I’m looking forward to seeing how he does.”
Moyes did not speak to Guardiola before completing the move for Grealish but has been confident he would join this summer for a while. The Scot said: “I didn’t speak directly to Pep about it, although he has him closely and is one of the best managers and chooses what he wants.
“My choice is that I think he can bring us something which we’ve not got, a bit more flair and hopefully more creativity to our attacking line. What convinced me is the knowledge that he thinks he’s got a little bit to prove and to stand up. I’ve had to do that myself personally. I’ve had to come back from being knocked down. Sometimes you have to have that resilience to bounce back, to fight back and to show everybody.
“I just sense that Jack is carrying that with him now. I hope it shows through this season because, if it does, then we’ll get a lot of good things from Jack if he does.”
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Moyes is trying to rebuild Everton’s squad after a mass exodus of first-team players at the end of last season. He’s brought in Grealish, Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall, Thierno Barry, Adam Aznou, Mark Travers and Carlos Alcaraz has made his loan permanent.
Moyes added: “I think the club have done brilliantly to build a new stadium. It has taken years to happen but they’ve got there eventually and done it. I think now there has to be a building of a football club back inside it, to get it back to where it was and more importantly to get the team back to where it was. Or closer to where it should be.
“We are a long way off at the moment. I don’t think we can do that in this window and make the team what we want it to be, but we are going to need people along the journey to make it more exciting and make people want to come and play.
“Whether that is through high-profile players or our league position or how we are playing and our performances, we are needing some of them to give us a lift now. There’s been quite a few players who I’ve been disappointed have not chosen to come to Everton this summer and I think that’s because, if you look at the last four or five years, we’ve not been in great shape.
“Hopefully they are beginning to see a new stadium, great results in the second half of last season, and they start to believe Everton is a good home for them.”
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