Everton 2 Bolton 0  IT IS AROUND 37 miles from Goodison Park to David Moyes's home in Preston, which allows a manager plenty of time for thought.

Discussing his eighth anniversary at Everton, Moyes recalled some difficult journeys north. “I have gone home plenty of nights thinking ‘this is tough work’,” he reflected. “It is difficult to explain, but as a manager you are always looking for answers.”

The journey from Goodison on Saturday evening, like the last six after Premier League games, was on the back of a victory and it was put to him that his thoughts would have been lighter, happier. “No,” he said. “What hurts is thinking about where we could have been.

“We sold a player [Joleon Lescott] right on deadline. We tried to bring in people that maybe we didn’t want to have. We had injuries and thought they would be back in September. As you well know, they were not back until the new year.

“But now I think we have a group of players who are beginning to believe they are a good team. There has always been a doubt as to whether we could quite get there, but the recent wins against the top teams have made us realise we are much closer than we have ever been.

“We are looking for Everton to be a different animal than a Bolton, but when I came to Goodison we were scrapping with them.”

However, for much of this game they seemed a similar species, fighting to control a game as rain swept across the pitch. Only after Gretar Steinsson’s dismissal for bringing down Yakubu Ayegbeni, and the beautiful free-kick from Mikel Arteta that followed, did Everton really seize this game by the throat and they might have scored several times more before Steven Pienaar accepted a gift pass from Leon Osman.

Bolton are a team in transition, mixing some of the rugged football that served them so well under Sam Allardyce and Gary Megson with the more delicate touches Owen Coyle wants to introduce.

When Moyes left Preston for Goodison in 2002, the template for new managers was Alan Curbishley at Charlton; now it is Everton. “The job David Moyes has done is a testimony to him,” said Coyle.

“When he first came in, he had to juggle some balls. First of all, Everton were solid and now he’s adding a bit of flair. They are a role model a lot of clubs will look at.”

Guardian service