DAVID MOYES thinks Sunderland will have to buck the trend and opt for stability to stand any chance of achieving long-term success following years of uncertainty at the Stadium of Light.

Moyes returns to Goodison Park today; the 11 years he spent there were the most successful of his career, earning him subsequent jobs at Manchester United, Real Sociedad and now in the North-East.

But the days of managers holding down such lengthy stints at top-flight clubs appears over, with Arsene Wenger’s 20-year reign (which itself is shrouded in doubt with the summer approaching) unlikely to be repeated.

In fact Eddie Howe (4yrs 4months), Sean Dyche (4yrs 3m), Mark Hughes (3yrs 10m) and Aitor Karanka (3yrs 4m) are the longest serving Premier League chiefs after Wenger, highlighting how difficult it is to stay in a job for the long haul in modern football.

Claudio Ranieri, despite leading Leicester to a historic Premier League title last season, lost his job on Thursday and Swansea, Hull City and Crystal Palace – three other teams battling to beat the drop – have already had a change of manager.

But Sunderland’s decision makers have decided to keep Moyes in the job – and that is exactly what the Scotsman feels is required on Wearside.

Moyes said: “You look at Sir Alex Ferguson, 25 years at United. Arsene, now 20 years at Arsenal. There was Brian Clough over a decade at Forest. Sir Bobby Robson the same at Ipswich, 11-12 years. There are a couple more.

“And the managers who got that chance have achieved a level of success. To be changing managers all the time is not conducive to it working. People want more instant success and it is not always the way.

“The era of club-building for managers has gone. Ranieri leaving is proof of that. You have to come in and be really instant. If you are at a club which is continually changing managers you just keep following that path.

“Or when do you say ‘no, we have to change and stick with a manager?’ I think Sunderland need club building. Sunderland have been a club who have been through the period of change, change, change. They have tried that route. Sunderland now is definitely in a club building-stage; that is what it needs.”

Moyes had stability at Everton. He turned them into an established force battling for European football in his 11 years there before taking over at Old Trafford in the summer of 2013.

Less than a year later at United he lost his job after a defeat, ironically, at Everton and he will return to Goodison Park for the first time as a manager this afternoon.

He said: “It is good to be going back to Everton, great memories and good times being there. When you see what happened to Claudio Ranieri it makes me realise how fortunate I was to have a good chairman and good owners who, even when things weren’t going particularly well, always stuck by me.

“I am trying to do the same thing here. Before I took over at Everton I think they had just avoided relegation for the previous four or five years. We eventually turned them into a team that were finishing top ten or above most seasons, and challenging for Europe in the majority of them – and actually getting to the Champions League once as well.

“It was a process of bringing in a couple of players every year and we didn’t have an awful lot of money. If you said that to people now, that you have to wait ten years to achieve a high level of success, they would say ‘no way, we don’t want that, we want it quicker.’ Everton had to be rebuilt a little bit and it took a long time to do it.”

Another indication of Sunderland being a club having to go through the rebuilding stage arrived on Monday when it was confirmed there will be a round of redundancies.

A review of the business operations has been conducted by chief executive Martin Bain in recent months and staff were called for a meeting and informed that job losses were on their way.

The news arrived just days after Moyes and his squad returned from a mid-season training camp to New York and there has been criticism of the timing.

Moyes insisted: “Nothing to do with it. It is not connected. Nothing to do with it at all. At Christmas the players didn't have a party or get away. All we had was a night out with the wives.

“I gave them nothing because I didn't think it was right. But I did tell them that at the right time we'd get a break. It was a period when there were no games. It wasn't just us away there were 8-10 teams away.”

He added: “It was a realignment that Martin Bain had planned. You should probably look at how mistakes have been made and how we got to this stage. They have not all lost their jobs at the moment, it is a consultation period.

“I feel really sad and sorry for the people, especially in this region. I have told the players that staying in the Premier League isn’t just about us as players, it’s about the people who surround the club and industries outside the club, I’m very aware of that.”