The chorus was utterly unoriginal. It did not need to be new, witty or wonderfully worded. Simplicity can suffice and, with their team utterly dominant, the Everton fans inquired: “Are you watching, David Moyes?”
They knew the answer. They knew, too, that it ought to make painful viewing for him. What they did not know was that Moyes was deriving positives few others had identified from a dreadful display.
“We played very well in the first half,” he claimed. “To go in 2-0 down wasn’t what I expected.”
It was rhetoric that explained why Goodison Park's defiant leader has become Old Trafford's derided loser. Everton's overachiever has become Manchester United's great underachiever.
Because this was a wretched reunion for the manager who quit Merseyside for Manchester. In a season full of the wrong sort of landmarks, United made history again. They lost home and away league games to Everton for the first time since 1969/70. They are almost certain to finish beneath them for the first time in the Premier League era.
Moyes’s past beat his present 2-0 on Sunday, and the only saving grace for the embattled Scotsman was that it was not more. The scoreline did not reflect Everton’s superiority.
They were terrific. United were terrible. A shambles of a side were second-best all over the pitch. Moyes’s tactics, such as they were, did not work. His selections were strange. His team played like men who want their manager sacked.
Moyes’s analysis of the performance lacked credibility, but a league table showing United in seventh place brought a reality check.
“It has been a difficult season,” he added. “I recognise it has not been good. It needs to be better.”
Much better.
Now it is a mathematical certainty that United, champions last season, will not qualify for the Uefa Champions League the next. Everton probably will not finish in the top four, but theirs has been a valiant attempt. United’s has been a limp, lame challenge.
It ended suitably ineptly. Moyes was greeted by a chorus of boos, rather than the soundtrack of a standing ovation, which he received on his previous trip to Goodison Park. Then he was still Everton manager, admired for 11 years of diligent work, rather than mocked for a shocking season.
Then the focus was on United's contingent of old Evertonians, but then it changed to incorporate the man they failed to lure to Old Trafford. Everton rebuffed United's offers for Leighton Baines – the first was deemed "derisory and insulting" – and the Englishman is a reason why his employers are above his suitors. Moyes moulded Baines into the Premier League's best left-back. Roberto Martinez is reaping the benefits.
Baines’s set-piece excellence has been a constant, and his penalty was drilled past David de Gea. The acrobatic save had come from Phil Jones, who blocked Romelu Lukaku’s shot with his hand, causing referee Mark Clattenburg to point to the spot.
Everton’s second goal was too simple. Seamus Coleman was granted the freedom of the right flank to advance. He supplied the defence-splitting pass and Kevin Mirallas provided the whipped finish to leave De Gea with no chance.
“I thought we were devastating on the counter attack,” Martinez said. “We were full of energy and dynamic.”
The excellent, elusive Steven Naismith should have scored a third. Tim Howard denied Wayne Rooney, another old Evertonian, a consolation goal his substandard display did not merit.
“It was a pristine effort to keep a clean sheet,” Martinez added.
United, in contrast, were defensively disorganised. “The two [goals] we conceded were rank, rotten,” Moyes said.
He continued to claim there were positives.
“There were things that were not that good but there were things that were good,” he said. “We need to try and get rid of the bad things and do better with the things we should have done.”
Not for the first time, he sounded surprised by defeat, but the worst thing is that everyone saw it coming. Everyone except Moyes.
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