He walked into a relegation-threatened club, short of confidence and struggling for goals; one whose only wins in 11 games came against the lesser lights of Leyton Orient and Crewe. He was an untried manager at the highest level, a journeyman defender turned coach who was confronted by a dressing room of players only a few years his junior and with rather more concrete achievements in their careers. He flourished.

A decade later, David Moyes has proved himself an inspired appointment by Everton. The 38-year-old plucked from Preston has become one of the elder statesmen of Premier League management, his ten years in charge - the anniversary falls on Wednesday - exceeded only by Sir Alex Ferguson and Arsene Wenger. In that time, Everton have become a byword for continuity, a club that has repeatedly overachieved. As Steve Watson, part of the squad for the first three years of the Scot's long reign, said: "Nobody could have been at Everton for that period of time and been as successful as David Moyes."

While he has no trophies beyond individual honours - Moyes has three times been voted the LMA's Manager of the Year; one more than Ferguson in that time - it is sustained success and a tangible achievement nonetheless. Everton have managed five successive top-eight finishes, and seven in total. They are the only club to break into the top four without substantial funds, in the 2004-05 season, and may be bound for a second FA Cup final in recent seasons this year.

Yet, according to those present at the start of the Moyes revolution, the key came in the first few days. The Scot began as he meant to carry on; a confident assumption of authority was accompanied by a message to his new charges.

"At his first meeting, he made it clear that if you gave him respect, you would get that in return," said midfielder Lee Carsley. "One of his greatest strengths is his man-management: his honesty and integrity." The Everton public were swift converts to the manager's cause, with an immediate impact made both on and off the pitch. Branding his new employers "the people's club" was a PR masterstroke and a motto that Everton swiftly adopted, while on the field David Unsworth scored some 30 seconds into his reign in a debut win against Fulham.

A blend of transparent even-handedness, training-ground excellence and a relentless work ethic convinced the players. "As an out-and-out and football coach, I don't think I have worked with anyone better than David Moyes," Watson added. "His selections were always fair. Less than any other manager I know, he didn't have favourites." Carsley concurred: "He works so hard. In his first year at Everton he did everything from the warm-ups to overseeing the rehab of injured players."

That first full season was a resounding success, as Everton finished seventh. His second, when they limped home ten places lower, was not. Coupled with the sale of Wayne Rooney to Manchester United and - in a recurring theme of Moyes' time at Goodison Park - limited expenditure, Everton appeared also-rans. What followed was utterly unexpected, "a minor miracle" in Watson's words.

Moyes' men broke into the top four in September and never relinquished their position among the elite. They were the earthy alternative to Chelsea, Arsenal and Manchester United. It was a side who had adopted their manager's industrious habits - "It is a working-class club and they expect you to work hard; that is the minimum," Carsley said - and it was entirely typical of their collective endeavour that they were resourceful enough to compensate for the absence of superstars.

"Instead of a 30-goal-a-season striker, we had maybe six players with five goals from midfield," said Watson. Indeed, their forward line consisted of a six-goal striker; Marcus Bent, a £300,000 bargain who set the tone with his non-stop running. Yet he was supported in a formation Moyes had devised which, like many of more effective ideas, survives to this day.

Ostensibly part of a five-man midfield, Tim Cahill advanced to support Bent. Carsley was the Everton version of Claude Makelele, shielding the defence. "It was a system we had tried the season before, we had tampered with it without committing to it until we worked on it on our tour of America," he said. "I was sitting behind the midfield."

The consistently efficient Carsley was rebranded, aided by his manager's input. "He had faith in me and he made me realise how good a player I could be," added the 38-year-old, now an academy coach at Coventry.

It was, in many ways, a quintessential Moyes team, equipped with a raft of senior players. Intimidating as he can appear, the manager was facilitator rather than dictator. "We had a lot of characters in the side," Carsley added. "We self-managed in a many ways. We had good leaders."

The importance of bringing the right personalities to the club could not be played down. "When he signs a player, he knows exactly what he has got as a character," Watson emphasised. "He doesn't take any risks." As his generation gave way to younger figures like Phil Neville, Phil Jagielka, Tim Howard, Mikel Arteta and Leighton Baines, character has been a constant, value for money often achieved on the comparatively few occasions Moyes has ventured into the transfer market.

The side of 2007-2009, who secured successive fifth-place finishes, may have been Everton's most complete since Howard Kendall's title-winning teams of the 1980s. On each occasion, they were the best of the rest, winning the 16-team mini-league. Yet despite individuals' obvious ability, the significance of Moyes was apparent for one of his old charges. "There will not be many players who will go on to bigger and better things," said Carsley, who left Goodison Park in 2008 after six years' stalwart service in midfield.

The same might not be true of the manager who reaches a rare landmark this week. "I don't doubt other clubs have looked at David Moyes," Watson added. "And I still think he is going to go on and manage one of the institutional clubs like Manchester United or Manchester City." At one of the other great institutional clubs, Everton, the hope remains that a decade is just the start for the long-serving loyalist.

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