Moyes claims he wanted to ‘fight the world’ as Manchester United manager

David Moyes has said he wanted to “fight the world” when he first joined Everton and Manchester United but his calmer demeanour today should not be mistaken for a drop in passion.

The Everton manager insists it will be just another game when he faces United at Goodison Park on Saturday having competed against his former club several times with West Ham. Moyes was sacked only 10 months after succeeding Sir Alex Ferguson at Old Trafford and described the setback as “part of life as a football manager. You have to find a way back and that’s what I had to do after the disappointment of losing my job at Manchester United.”

Everton sit above Ruben Amorim’s team in the Premier League table after winning four of their six league games under Moyes. The Scot has been reinvigorated back at Goodison, but admits he is a different manager from the one who left Everton for United in 2013.

Moyes said: “Maybe a bit calmer. That comes as you get older – you can’t be quite as full on. It’s very hard for me to go to every under-21 game and under-18 game now, which I would have done in the past. But the job of being a manager means there is much more work than there was 15, 20 years ago. There is much more regarding debriefing and dealing with more players. There’s more media too. Things change and you’ve got to try and change with it.

“Sometimes a bit more experience helps. Sometimes you can calm yourself down, but don’t take my calmness as meaning I’m not passionate with that. I’m also using more people to help me now as well, so it’s not all left to the manager. We’ve got a lot of coaches and we can take bits of information from each other and help. Have I changed? Maybe a bit. I’m not having to fight the world all the time now, which when you first come in you feel as if you need to.”

While Amorim has stuck to his principles of playing 3-4-3 since replacing Erik ten Hag in November, despite United’s poor results and inheriting a squad unsuited to the system, Moyes believes a more pragmatic approach is required when taking over midway through a season.

“I’ve had to adjust a little bit to what’s available,” he said. “I think when you take over a team during the season you have to find a way of getting the best results. We certainly did because we’ve been in a position where we’ve been too close to the bottom three. But I have to say the players, whatever we’ve done, whatever we’ve asked them to do, have been fantastic. They’ve gone about their job brilliantly well.”

United tried to sign Jarrad Branthwaite last summer and Moyes insisted any suitor “will have to come with a big bag of money” should they attempt to sign the Everton defender at the end of this season.