From zeros to heroes, and all without Wayne Rooney. Everton manager David Moyes tells Michael Walker how he did it

David Moyes, in his office at Everton's Bellefield training ground, was trying none too successfully to maintain the idea that he is a changing man and a changing manager. "I didn't say I was getting mellow," he interrupted. "I said I was getting a little bit less intense."

Downstairs Everton's players were contributing to a literacy push for local children that involved each player naming his favourite book. "Of Mice And Men," said one. "Something called Barney, it's what I read to my two-year-old," said another. Back upstairs Moyes had moved on to history books and his intention to write a chapter in Everton's.

"At Everton there is a history, like Celtic," said Moyes, Celtic being the club the Glaswegian first joined as a player. "I can't profess to know all Everton's history but it's there on the walls in print. That's where you know the club has a story to tell.

"The memory I have is of the teleprinter on a Saturday night, that typewriter sound, and it was always Everton - the teams of the 1980s that were winning the Cup Winners' Cup, signing players like Gary Lineker. They were at the forefront. But Heysel stopped Everton and who knows if it is still having an effect today? They did not get the chance to bring in European revenue and went into a decline. Maybe the club's been in a bit of disarray since for different reasons.

"The generation of fans coming now need to know there's a story to tell about the David Moyes era. I hope there will be a story. I hope we come out of the . . . not quite doldrums but the position where we finish in the top 10 twice in 10 years.

"Otherwise, what Everton supporters are we breeding? I have to make sure Everton are not seen as a club where avoiding relegation is a success. Maybe we need to change the mindset around this club."

Mindset, change and David Moyes were what we had come to discuss. Everton are third in the Premiership this morning and visit second-place Chelsea this afternoon. After the summer instability at Goodison Park, when even Wayne Rooney's departure was at times overshadowed by uncertainty about the ownership and direction of the club, Everton sitting third after 11 games feels mildly mysterious.

How can there be progression from such chaos? The personnel, bar the outward movement of Rooney and Tomasz Radzinski and the incoming of Marcus Bent and Tim Cahill, remains the same as last season. Then Everton finished 17th and, according to Moyes, won "about one game a month". Now they have won seven in 11. What has changed? The manager?

Moyes has been party to the propagation of the theory that he has somehow modified, become less intense. But has he really changed from the 34-year-old who took over at Preston North End almost seven years ago? "I think you change both as a man and as a manager; the main thing is experience," he said. "I bet there are things in the first two years of your work where you look back and think: 'Oh, if I'd known then what I know now . . .' And I think you can change. I was at myself all the time, being so hard on myself when we were losing. Are there new things out there, new drills? Am I managing correctly, am I speaking to people in the right way?"

The way Moyes addresses his players today is different, he said, especially from the way he spoke to those at Preston. Everton's pre-season trip to America involved some sing-song team-building that is acquiring mythical status as Everton's season grows. Moyes would not reveal what he sang in front of his players, other than to say "it might have been Irish" but, as well as singing, Moyes gave people the chance to speak. He asked his backroom staff about last term.

" 'Give me it double-barrelled'," I said, and some of them did. That's what you want, isn't it? You don't want people around you telling you you're always right. There were bits I heard where I said to myself: 'Is that right?' I gave them all a chance to have a prod.

"But, if I was successful in my three-four years at Preston, if I was successful in my first year and a half at Everton, why then would I change everything because of last year? When I came to Everton we may not have been champions but we were certainly winning more than one game a month; that's a lot of bad weekends. What sort of person would you expect any manager to be if that's happening? You would hate to think he was nice. Maybe because we're doing well the players don't need that level of intensity. Sometimes I think winning is the big secret to all football.

"As a man I don't think I've ever changed in the sense that I've always tried to be straight in what I say and what I do. As a manager my instinct, my philosophy is the same, that's not altered. So the point of the matter is that I've not changed much. Experience makes you, but I've not changed at all."

One thing Moyes promised himself on that first day at Preston was that he would never buy a player he has not seen in the flesh. At Everton this summer it barely seemed an issue, so poor were they. But now there is the Rooney money and the curious offshore trust, Fortress Sports Fund, yet to stump up its promised cash. Moyes may have £ 10 million in January to spend on recruitment. "That's your figure," he said. But yesterday's public admiration for Chelsea's Scott Parker is interesting, particularly today. More significant is Moyes' willingness to sign an extension to a contract to keep him at Goodison until "2008, around there".

Jose Mourinho may well have been and gone as Chelsea manager by then; everything at Chelsea feels abrupt. Moyes will be meeting Mourinho for the first time this afternoon and the 41-year-old Scot said of the 41-year-old Portuguese: "I've just watched him from afar. He's a winner, isn't he? He's won things. That's something I'd like to do. Some people have won things and maybe not said the things Mourinho has said. But at the end of the day he's been very successful in a short period of time. So, good on him."

Moyes, however, does not expect all things Everton to escalate the way they have at Chelsea. The message from Moyes is long-term. "We can't suddenly become Arsenal or Manchester United. Ours will be a gradual climb. We must get players here for the future. Maybe in the past Everton have sometimes brought players here to give the crowd a lift. I won't do that, it's important that we don't spew out money and get nothing back. Re-sale and renewal matter." Renewed rather than changed. Perhaps that is a better way to think of David Moyes and Everton this season.