Article from today's Telegraph on Dunc. Its behind a pay wall so I've cut & pasted it.
Inside the managerial mind of 'Big Dunc' - and why Everton's players should be afraid
The Merseyside club genuinely matters to the Scot and he'll take charge once again at Goodison Park for the match against Aston Villa
These days, the pigeons in Duncan Ferguson’s back garden have been joined by budgerigars. It remains the one of the great contrasts in the Premier League that one its most fearsome former strikers loves his birds, but Ferguson has always been more nuanced than his popular images might suggest.
As his old Rangers team-mate Ally McCoist says, “he stood out more than the average footballer”, which is to suggest he was somewhat different. In a football landscape with little loyalty, Everton genuinely mattered to Ferguson and still does. He is an employee at the club but, according to those close to him, he has taken their slide down the Premier League table personally, which makes his first game in charge against Aston Villa - managed by the former Liverpool midfielder Steven Gerrard, and featuring recent Goodison Park malcontent Lucas Digne - all the more pointed.
“The biggest thing for him at the moment is that Everton fans need someone to care and bring pride back to the club,” added McCoist. “It’s the one thing that is missing. People say he’s not tactical, or he’s not Thomas Tuchel, or this or that. The argument is that they’ve had managers like that and they are still in this situation.”
To understand Ferguson’s relationship with Everton is to go back to 1994 when he was signed from Rangers in the wake of his headbutt on Raith Rovers defender John McStay, which led to an assault conviction, jail and a ban from the Scottish Football Association.
He had not visited Merseyside before his loan, but an affinity was quickly established, helped by scoring his first goal for the club in a derby.
“He found a bit of respect and love that maybe he wasn’t getting up the road,” said McCoist. “The lad was not treated well by the football authorities up here. Everton fans saw someone totally committed to the club. That is a heck of a start right away.”
Joe Royle, who signed him permanently, started to get wind that teams were making special plans for Ferguson but he, too, saw a different side to his striker’s hardman reputation - thanks in part to his wife, Janine, who he married in 1998.
“Yes, he was passionate and you’ll see all the photographs with him being aggressive with somebody because they are good photographs,” he said. “But he came out of those early days when he was getting booked and sent off occasionally. His wife had a big influence on him but the big fella is what you see. There is no pretence about him.”
Ferguson has been back at Goodison Park in some capacity since the
David Moyes era, before recently working with Carlo Ancelotti. While birds are his hobby - his racing pigeons were a quirk of his early days in England - his life is football, agonising over it until the late hours. Before the first game of his previous spell as caretaker manager in the wake of Marco Silva's sacking in 2019, he took two sleeping pills to help avoid a night of tossing and turning.
Judging by that brief previous spell - where he emerged from games against Chelsea, Manchester United and Arsenal, he will play 4-4-2 but his style is not simply blood and thunder. He is a deep thinker about football, bordering on obsessive. He was working for Ancelotti but also learning from him, with ambitions of being manager himself eventually.
Everton will be more direct and possibly more physical. When he was in charge last they set records for their amount of tackling, and Ferguson’s theory is that his two strikers screen the opposition midfield as the team’s first defenders.
“He clearly, clearly loves his football and has an obsession with it,” said McCoist. “People undersell him as only being a character but that is not the case. You don’t work with these managers and not pick things up. He’s a smart man.”
Players will have been told some home truths this week following Rafael Benitez’s dismissal, which would be expected after a run of just one Premier League win since September. During his last spell as caretaker he brought on Moise Kean and subbed him off again. He does not suffer fools gladly.
His coaching has been influenced most significantly by the late Howard Kendall after working with him during the 1997-98 season. Kendall’s daughter Lily gave him her father’s watch to wear as Ferguson masterminded victory over Chelsea, and he still has it.
There could be symbolism in Kendall’s stopped watch helping inspire Everton out of their slump. After that win against Chelsea, he went to see owner Farhad Moshiri and chairman Bill Kenwright and the pair were crying tears of joy. At the moment they are trying to navigate their way out of a mess after Benitez’s brief reign.
In Ferguson they have a man in charge with charisma and genuine passion for the club.
