David Moyes is disturbed by one question more than any other

“People keep telling me I’ve mellowed over the years,” he says. “I’m not sure that’s a good thing. Does it mean they think I’ve gone soft?” Moyes laughs for a flickering moment – and then fixes you with the fierce, piercing glare that is legendary throughout football. His toughness is as authentic and everlasting as granite. In 10 days’ time he will have been the boss at Everton for 10 years, joining a select band of managers who achieved the feat with one club in the top flight – men like Sir Alex Ferguson, Arsene Wenger, Brian Clough, Sir Bobby Robson, Bill Shankly and Bill Nicholson. Moyes is among illustrious company, yet still only 48. He is a relatively young manager and his intelligence, intensity and inspiration blaze as brightly as ever in a commanding figure of high ambition.

I say to my players there must no diving in our team. There is no ‘but’ to it either. I don’t want it David Moyes

That’s particularly evident in his strong views about how football has changed for the worse during the last 10 years, and in his bold and radical vision for improving the national sport. One of his ideas is that “everyone in the Premier League takes a 20 per cent pay cut to put football finances back on an even keel and allow a significant reduction in ticket prices to make football more affordable for the ordinary fan.” When he joined Everton in March 2002, Moyes famously called it the ‘people’s club’. He dearly wants football as a whole to remain the people’s game.

“Perhaps the 20 per cent suggestion would cause some mayhem,” says Moyes, “but I think we need to do something serious. People might say it would be harder to attract players to the Premier League, but we have to take responsibility for the long-term health of football. “Clubs have to control their money properly and only pay what they can actually afford. People have to be held responsible when things go wrong. “Every family in the country at the moment has to finance correctly. They can’t overspend. Why is football different?” Moyes has proved a roaring success at Everton, cajoling the club to punch far above its weight with slender resources.

He has been named Manager of the Year three times in a decade and earned universal admiration. In the same period, Sir Alex Ferguson has won the award only twice. Premier League football was very different when Moyes arrived as a virtual unknown at Goodison. Amid the excitement, he has seen too many bad trends corrupting the game. “I see myself as a supporter of football and I see things I don’t like that are damaging the game,” says Moyes. “One of them is players going down too easily. In the last 10 years, we have seen a lot more diving. Players now go over at the slightest brush of contact. For me, it’s one of the worst things of all.

“I believe players must take a bigger responsibility on this issue. We and the players haven’t done enough to help the referees, which has made their job doubly hard. I would advocate retrospective action by the FA on diving. “I say to my players there must no diving in our team. There is no ‘but’ to it either. I don’t want it. “Another area to worry about is agents. It was a better situation 10 years ago. Back then, I looked at the way agents abroad had control of the players, and in some cases the clubs, and thought that couldn’t happen in Britain.

“You thought the chairmen wouldn’t be daft enough for agents to be doing the deals or telling them what deals they should be doing. “That seems to be happening now in some cases, and it seems the players are more easily controlled by agents instead of doing what’s right for their own game. That’s a change for the worse.” Moyes also believes the quality of football in the Premier League has declined with the advent of faster and more powerful players. “Technology has changed for managers and helped in many ways,” he explains. “Now we can monitor everything a player does. There’s no doubt the game has speeded up but I’m not sure that has made for better football.