On an emotionally charged night under the Goodison Park lights, it was imperative that Villa didn’t let the raucous crowd get involved in the early stages.
They made a good fist of doing so and nearly took the lead through Morgan Rogers, but his ferocious strike was excellently stopped by Jordan Pickford. It was all one-way traffic towards the Everton goal in the opening exchanges, and this time James Tarkowski was the hero as he threw himself in front of Youri Tielemans’ stinging drive to deny what looked like a certain goal.
Everton were struggling to get a foothold in the game, and former Villan Ashley Young almost gave his ex-employers the ultimate gift when his underhit back pass was pounced upon by Ollie Watkins, but when one-on-one with Pickford, he curled an effort inches wide.
It took the hosts until around the half-hour mark to work a meaningful sighting of goal, and when they did, they ought to have put it away, but Dominic Calvert-Lewin could only flash an effort inches wide of the target.
Smarting from his earlier miss, Watkins was in no mood to pass up his next opportunity when he was freed in behind by Rogers and this time made no mistake in slotting beneath the onrushing Pickford to fire Villa ahead.
The Goodison Park atmosphere would typically have turned at that point when Sean Dyche was in charge, but there was a sense of calm this evening despite the fact Everton were struggling to get a foothold in the game.
That patience turned to frustration the longer Everton trailed, and they were showing few signs of getting back into the game to the annoyance of the majority inside Goodison.
With five minutes left on the clock, Everton still hadn’t had a second-half shot on target such were their struggles in the final third, and ultimately those difficulties cost them the opportunity of getting anything from Moyes’ second debut.
Villa were relatively untroubled in seeing out what was their fourth successive win ‘to nil’ on this ground – a result which means they are able to keep pace with the top-four chasers.