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I love the start of a new football season. I love getting to the stadium early and taking a walk around the pitch, taking in that sweet smell of freshly cut grass, enjoying the sunshine on my face. It won’t be like this for long. In a few months it will be cold and wet, we’ll be under pressure for results, I might even be fighting for my job. But just for now, three hours before a ball is kicked, it’s beautiful.

“Gaffer?” The hairs on the back of my neck leap up and all of my happy thoughts fly away like startled pigeons. It’s Duncan Ferguson.

“Duncan?” I say, turning around.

“Decided on the lineup yet, Gaffer? I need to get the team sheet down.”

It’s a good question. In the short time between the end of the pre-season fixtures and this game, we’ve had a few injury problems. Bryan Oviedo is out for five months with tendonitis and, as I don’t fancy Leighton Baines’ chances of making it to January without at least one little knock, I need to recruit. But from the bargain bin. And so, for just £325,000, here’s Enric Saborit.

Idrissa Gueye has just about shaken off his injury, but Seamus Coleman and James McCarthy are still long-term absentees. There’s a lot to consider and so I don’t even notice David Moyes walking along the touchline towards me. At least not until something very odd happens.

Duncan visibly tenses. It’s weird. I notice his shoulders go back before I notice Moyes and on the very edge of my hearing, I’m certain that I can hear him emit a low growling noise.

“Big man,” says Moyes to him assertively.

“Gaffer,” says Duncan, staring back at him.

“Going well, big man?” says Moyes, without a flicker of emotion.

“Aye,” says Duncan.

“Good, big man,” says Moyes. “Good.”

Duncan seems to relax a little.

“Biscuit?” asks Moyes, kinder now, pulling a Hobnob from his inside pocket.

Duncan’s eyes widen. He bends his legs slightly and opens his mouth.

“Wait…” whispers Moyes. “Wait…”

Duncan whines impatiently, but then Moyes tosses the biscuit into the air. Duncan takes it with one snap of his jaws and wolfs it down.

“I’ll be on my way then,” he grins, brushing crumbs off his chin. And with that, he trots off to the dressing room.

“What on earth was all that I about?,” I ask Moyes when Duncan is safely out of range.

“Ah, that’s Big Dunc,” smiles Moyes. “He’s basically a German Shepherd.”

“A what?”

“A German Shepherd, you know? An Alsatian. He can smell fear and he’s very aggressive with new people, but if you can train him right, you’ll never have a better friend, I’ll tell you that now. He’s as loyal as anything. Too loyal sometimes. Tobias Linderoth answered me back at half time once and it took five of us to drag Big Dunc off him. Terrible scene. I thought he was going to bite his windpipe out. Anyway, I just wanted say hello, let’s have a cup of tea after the game, eh?”

I walk back to my own dressing room deep in thought. Duncan can be difficult company, he’s not always pleasant to be around, but if I can get him onside, I can’t think of a more formidable ally.

And I’ll need allies if we don’t beat Sunderland. A typical Moyes side, they’ll be 4-5-1, they’ll close down quickly and they’ll work hard. They won’t make many chances, but with Jermaine Defoe up front, they won’t need many chances either. This will be a tough one.

“How do you think it’s going, Erwin?” I ask after the opening exchanges.

“The players have only a limited understanding of what we’re trying do,” he says coldly. “Especially the new signings. Also, the theme of your team talk went down very badly. Very badly indeed. You can’t say ‘Please don’t screw this up, we’re the favourites, and I don’t want to get fired after eight games again,’ it’s not what they need. And they don’t like you anyway. Yannick Bolasie says you only got the job because no-one else turned up to the interview but I know that is not true because Ronald turned up and Bill Kenwright pretended that his phone had gone off and ran away.”

“Thanks, Erwin.”

In spite of the players’ doubts, we make a strong start and take an early lead. After ten minutes, Romelu Lukaku flicks the ball to Idrissa Gueye and the Senegalese international calmly clips the ball past a babyfaced Jordan Pickford. It’s a scrappy game, Sunderland are limited to long shots and we take that 1-0 lead to the break where I urge them not to get complacent.

We are exactly what we are; a less than settled midtable side. Yannick Bolasie ignores his instructions to stay wide and repeatedly runs into traffic. Gerard Deulofeu’s first 12 crosses fail to reach a blue shirt. We have 19 shots, but only four are on target. We’re leading, but we’re not clicking.

On the hour, I make two changes. James McLean comes on for Bolasie, who hates me anyway and Tom Davies replaces the flagging Gueye. We spark back into life, Deulofeu hits the post, Davies has one ruled out for offside and then, with five minutes to go, Lukaku gets his second assist of the day, threading one through for Deulofeu to finish from a tight angle. Tom Cleverley arrives to give Ross Barkley an easy finish and there’s still time for Leighton Baines to swing a deep cross in for Deulofeu to tuck home a third. Either we’re actually going to do okay this year or Sunderland are in real trouble.

Burnley were beaten 2-1 by West Ham in their first game of the season and, watching the highlights, I can see why. They’re very slow at the back, despite playing with two deep defensive midfielders, and they struggle to deal with Dimitri Payet and Manuel Lanzini’s movement. But they’ve got big Sam Vokes up front and, despite his promising debut, I’m worried about matching him up with six-foot Domagoj Vida. But given that neither Ashley Williams nor Phil Jagielka are taller (and that it’s unwise to mess with a winning side) I leave him in. I’m also tempted to swap out Bolasie because of his attitude, but that feels unwise because McLean is the only real option to replace him. I send out the same eleven.

Vokes is injured and Sean Dyche goes 4-4-fudging-two with the faster Patrick Bamford and Andre Gray pairing up top, so I’m relieved not to have made any changes. I’m even more relieved after 19 minutes when Lukaku heads down a lofted free-kick and Vida smashes it past Tom Heaton to give us a 1-0 lead. And while Bolasie’s habit of cutting in so far from the left that he frequently ends up on the right is still annoying, there’s more space to run into against a 4-4-2 than a Moyes 4-5-1. It’s a blow to lose Lukaku to a thigh injury before the break, but loanee Enner Valencia is sparky and we can be quite pleased with ourselves at the break, a message I extend to the players.

Stunningly, this doesn’t precipitate a complete collapse, in fact Valencia doubles the lead ten minutes after the break, tucking home a low cross from Deulofeu. Burnley, for their part, can’t offer anything other than a series of wild long shots. With 20 minutes left, feeling reasonably confident, I withdraw the two tiredest players on the pitch, Ramiro Funes Mori and Ross Barkley, and replace them with Ashley Williams and Tom Cleverley. As Erwin taps the numbers into the electronic board, Barkley sends a looping cross to the back stick for Bolasie to clatter home. We win 3-0 and we’re well worth it too.

And so, while I realise it’s a little early for this sort of thing, it is Everton who sit at the top of the Premier League table. And while I know that this means very little, I’ve simply beaten two of the division’s weaker teams, it does mean that I’ve got six points on the board. If nothing else, I’m going to last longer than eight games this season…

I feel great. Really, really great. I sit at the front of the coach and I grin all the way home. Right up until Erwin sits down next to me and shows me his phone.

“Gaffer,” he says quietly. “We’ve got a problem.”

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