David Moyes marches into 2008 believing he has Everton on the right track to take them "back to the giddy heights" of the club's glory years.The Merseysiders ended 2007 with a controversial defeat - only their third in 17 matches - at home to Arsenal.

Everton's previous two defeats had been against Liverpool and Manchester United, which underlines the problem Moyes has in engineering their step up to the next level.

But he is delighted with the steady progress over the last year, a period which has seen Everton's points haul fall just eight short of Liverpool's - a club with title aspirations and a lot more money to spend.

"It has been a really good year for this club. Obviously qualifying for the UEFA Cup - that is a decent achievement - and we have had a good run in the second half of the year and are pleased with the progress we are making," said Moyes.

"But I have not won anything. I can keep talking about what we are doing and trying to achieve and there are signs we are getting towards our objective but the next step is a trophy.

"We are doing it differently to a lot of other clubs, not spending that much money because we do not have massive financial backers to allow us to progress with cash.

"We have to do it with a longer, slower, process. Maybe it is good someone is out there trying to do it in a different way without big money.

"It has taken us over five years to get to this stage. As a football club Everton have been big for years but we need to take them back to the giddy heights when they were achieving on the field too.

"To do that there is still a lot of work to be done. I have always wanted my teams to play good football, but you cannot do that overnight, the first job is to win games.

"But we are now entertaining, scoring lots of goals and I am pleased with that. We are in a strong league position and still in all the cups so we are doing as well as we had hoped for."

Meanwhile, Moyes reckons Everton are "much closer" to bridging the gap to the top Premier League teams than they were when he took over in 2002.

Moyes said: "Recent results have been frustrating, to be beaten by Arsenal and Manchester United. But they are good teams and we played well in both matches and learned a lot.

"The positives are that we are improving, and there were signs of that in both matches.

"We played a good brand of football, had plenty of possession and passed the ball well.

"Bridging that gap is the same as it was when I arrived five and a half years ago, we are much closer and just like when I arrived, we are still trying.

"We have worked well in the transfer market, we have good young players coming through and some good senior stars of our own. Gradually this is paying off.

"As for this transfer window, we have nobody lined up but we will be looking to improve if we can. And we don't want anyone to go."

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