Soccer: Messiah Moyes

Up at Newcastle they have a rather appealing tradition of playing "Secret Santa" at Christmas. The players pick the name of a fellow player out of a hat and, anonymously, buy a Christmas present for that player. Being footballers, and thus given to a lot of mickey-taking, many of the presents are practical jokes. For example, Duncan Ferguson drew the name of Nolberto Solano, and duly bought the little Peruvian a llama - a real one.

One Christmas Alan Shearer drew the name of Alessandro Pistone, the former captain of the Italian Under-21 team, a player not noted for his bravery. The Italian opened his present to discover he'd been given a chicken's heart. He left the club soon after.

Yet this weekend that same Pistone will undoubtedly be lining up at left fullback for the club he joined, Everton - a team that is lying third in the Premier League, lauded for its physical commitment and work ethic. Alongside him will be Alan Stubbs and David Weir - aged 33 and 34 respectively, journeymen at best and supposedly well past their sell-by dates.

Elsewhere, the team includes the inexperienced Australian Tim Cahill, who made his name playing for Millwall, two products of the club's youth programme - Leon Osman and Tony Hibbert - and a 38-year-old goalkeeper, Nigel Martyn. Wide on the left will be Kevin "Zinedine" Kilbane, a flop at Sunderland, but now fulfilling his early promise as both provider and scorer of goals.

The two key players to add to this odd assortment of youngsters, has-beens, might-have beens and never-weres, are Thomas Gravesen and Marcus Bent. Gravesen was known as "mad dog" at his former club Hamburg, but if you see a bald-headed figure snapping at opponents' ankles, you're probably looking at Lee Carsley. Gravesen has become the key to Everton's attack, receiving the ball from defenders, who generally seem really pleased to get rid of it, and either playing intelligent passes for Marcus Bent or carrying the ball purposefully forward.

If Gravesen has surprised, then Bent has been a positive revelation. At 26, he has already had seven other clubs, fought two unsuccessful relegation battles with Ipswich and Leicester, and known the humiliation of plying his trade at Brentford and Port Vale. But this season he is playing on his own up front, capitalising on his mobility and ability to hold the ball up, allowing Cahill, Osman and Kilbane to get up in support.

So how can this mish-mash of players be lying third in the table? The credit surely belongs to their steely-eyed manager David Moyes.

Perhaps Moyes gets the best out of players of limited ability because he himself was such a player. By the age of 22, he'd realised he would never be a star and took his first coaching badge. By 34, he was managing Preston North End, and making a very good fist of it.

An obsessive man, Moyes paid his own way to the World Cup in France, just so he could visit the various training camps. He reads voraciously, analyses games, studies tactics, consults sports psychologists, nutritionists - whatever it takes. This is a guy you just know spends his summer holidays under a sun umbrella planning training routines for the coming season.

Moyes' arrival at Goodison was positively messianic, inspiring the team to three wins in his first four matches, staving off the threat of relegation.

The following season, 2002/03, was even better. After a brilliant start to the campaign, Everton missed out on UEFA Cup qualification on the last day of the season, finishing a creditable seventh. However, reality bit the following season. Results were poor, tactics eccentric, players were played out of position and there were frequent run-ins with the young prodigy, Wayne Rooney, who eventually left for Manchester United.

After getting whipped by 4-1 at home by Arsenal on the first day of the season, Everton were installed as the punters' favourites for relegation. Now, after six 1-0 victories, they have a defensive record second only to Chelsea and are all but guaranteed a 103rd successive season in the top flight next year.

The secret of Moyes' success appears to be quite straightforward. He is a hard man, a reputation established at Preston where he had a fist fight with two of his own players, who demands discipline both on and off the pitch. His tactics are simple: defend deep, so that Stubbs and Weir don't have to turn round, get Gravesen on the ball and get balls into the penalty area. Work hard when the opponents have the ball and don't give it away. Before every game he gives each player precise instructions on what he expects of them and, most importantly, never asks them to do anything of which they believe they are incapable.

So Everton are third in the table by keeping it simple and getting the maximum from the players available. However, some cynics have commented that Everton have 12 players whose contracts expire at the end of the season, and that there is nothing that focuses a player's short-term efforts as much as doubt over his long-term future.

Whatever the outcome this season, the events of last season have mellowed him a little. He was recently heard to observe: "It looks like it's down to a straight race between the big three clubs: Arsenal, Chelsea and Everton." Not bad, for a dour Scot, not bad.