US national team goalkeeper Tim Howard is standing behind his former Everton boss David Moyes, even as rumors continue to swirl that the embattled Manchester United manager will be sacked after just a year on the job.
Howard and the Toffees coasted past Manchester United 2-0 on Sunday in a game likely better remembered for the Everton fans’ bitter reception of their former manager, who left the club for Old Trafford last year.
The Everton faithful soundly booed Moyes when he emerged from the tunnel at Goodison Park and eventually chanted “sacked in the morning” as Everton took charge of the game. One fan dressed up as the Grim Reaper and jeered Moyes from behind Manchester United’s dugout.
“We have brilliant fans, but that was unfair on him,” said Howard, who was signed by Moyes in 2007. “He was the second coming, the messiah 12 months ago, and I don't think as Evertonians, we should ever forget that.”
Moyes spent 11 seasons at Everton before he emerged as the hand-picked successor to Sir Alex Ferguson at Manchester United last summer. But the club has suffered mightily ever since, currently sitting seventh in the league and faced with missing the Champions League for the first time in nearly two decades.
Still, Howard insisted that Moyes was “a brilliant manager” during his time at Everton.
“Football is a funny game,” said Howard, who signed a contract with the team through 2018 last week. “It has highs and lows. You take the good with the bad and you keep rolling.”
Everton currently sit in fifth place on the EPL table with three matches remaining, one point behind Arsenal and a Champions League spot. Howard, 35, played in the Champions League during his early days in England with Manchester United in 2004, but has never played in the tournament with the Toffees.
“Fourth place is achievable,” he said. “We want to go into that last game still feeling like we are 90 minutes away from Champions League football.”
