Martinez tips Moyes for rapid return

Semiu Salami
Semiu Salami

Everton manager Roberto Martinez has backed predecessor David Moyes to make a swift return to management.

Moyes, who led Everton to fourth in the Premier League during 11 years at the club, left to join Manchester United last summer but was sacked on Tuesday.

“I am sure he will be ready to get into another job and I am sure he won’t have a lack of offers,” Martinez said, adding that “He will always be well thought of and we will always be thankful of the job he did at our football club.”

Moyes won the League Managers’ Association Manager of the Year three times at Everton, where he won 218 of his 518 matches in charge.

But as Sir Alex Ferguson’s successor he was dismissed only 10 months into a six-year contract, having achieved 27 wins from 51 matches and suffered seven home defeats, leaving United in seventh place and likely to miss out on European qualification for the first time since the ban on English clubs was lifted in 1990.

Moyes’s final match in charge of United proved to be a 2-0 defeat against his former team at Goodison Park last weekend.

“We know David Moyes will look forward to the next footballing chapter and next experience,” said former Swansea and Wigan boss Martinez, who has taken Everton to fifth in his first season.

“We all know he is a very successful man and has a real strong winning mentality and he will get ready to bounce back straight away.

“It is very difficult to get that experience, the amount of years he has been working at the highest level, and the know-how he has is a real strength.

“We all know he is going to be very successful in the future. It has been a difficult experience, but any experience is a good experience in this game unfortunately.”

West Ham manager Sam Allardyce also backed Moyes to make a successful return to the game but suggested the 50-year-old should take some time off before making his next decision.

“I wouldn’t advise him to come back into the game sooner. I would come back later if I were him. He has done 15 years continuously – maybe even longer,” said Allardyce.

“To take some time with the family and reflect and enjoy life a little bit more without the pressures of particularly Premier League football will do him the world of good and then when he emerges again, he will come back a better manager than he already has been, and he has been one hell of a manager.”

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