Dominic Fifield talks to Everton manager David Moyes who remains positive despite all the club's problems

Something remarkable happened at Bellefield this week. As David Moyes's apparently crestfallen Everton players arrived at the club's training complex in dribs and drabs, he said he was "optimistic about the future". That he then glanced around the car-park suggested he might still have been on the look-out for men in white coats.

Cheer has been in short supply in the permanently blue half of Merseyside recently. A traumatic summer of near inertia in the transfer market and public squabbles in the boardroom toppled into the campaign proper last weekend, with untouchable Arsenal running riot at Goodison Park.

Everton were humiliated 4-1 to be marooned at the foot of the table already, albeit on alphabetical order, and those who forecast doom and gloom appeared vindicated.

That there might now be hope smacks of the ridiculous, yet Moyes's side trot out at Selhurst Park this afternoon for Crystal Palace's first Premiership home match in six years relatively pepped. The top flight's thinnest squad may soon be fattened up, with negotiations ongoing with Internazionale to sign the Holland winger Andy van der Meyde for £4.75 million. There is a real sense the season starts here.

"Arsenal will tonk a few other teams, so you can't get too down about it," said the striker Marcus Bent.

"It's a matter of putting it behind you and

moving on and upwards."

Bent could spot a looming relegation scrap more readily than most having been demoted from the top flight already with Palace, Ipswich and Leicester. But, while Everton have flung all the ingredients together in what appears a potentially disastrous campaign, the overriding mood of defiance suggests they can yet rally.

"The older players have been through this before and know how to react," Bent said. "The younger ones will need to be helped through it but we haven't really been down about it this week. We've tried to keep our heads up, train as hard as we can, and we go to Palace with fresh ideas and fresh minds."

The optimism is needed. Season ticket sales have slipped by around 5,000 on last season, the locals disenchanted by a 17th-place finish and the lowest points tally Everton have mustered in the Premiership. A price hike hardly helped. Add to that the uncertainty over Wayne Rooney's future, the departure of the chief executive Trevor Birch after barely six weeks in the job and the very public feud between the chairman Bill Kenwright and the director Paul Gregg and the disillusion is understandable.

Kenwright has since unearthed £20 million of much-needed investment which the accountants are scrutinising. The influx of funds may only paper over the cracks for another year but it is likely to appease the club's bankers, Barclays, and the team's manager for the immediate future.

Moyes has admitted there were times in the close season when he considered his future, and he will hardly have been impressed to hear his most experienced striker and former club captain Kevin Campbell claim this week that he would take a 17th-place finish if it was offered now.

"I might say that nearer the end of the season but this is too big a club to be aiming to finish there," said the Scot. "I'd hope we can prove our critics wrong but I've been shot at so many times I'm virtually bullet-proof. Sure, I struggled to keep my chin up this summer but this is a big challenge, perhaps bigger than I initially envisaged and probably the biggest of my career so far. If we can get through it together we'll be much stronger for it.

"I'm being really positive - the players have responded well to everything I've asked and I'm actually relatively optimistic about what we're going to do here, in the short term and the long term. That's driving me at the moment. Hopefully we'll turn the corner very shortly but we still need bodies in. We're taking all the professionals we have to Palace and we're still short. But Everton's turn will come again. I just hope it's during my period in charge."

The return of Rooney to light jogging next week and of the £2 million Australian Tim Cahill from Olympic duty in Athens will bolster Moyes's resources. The England striker is expected to sign a new contract, for all that this is likely to prove his last season at Goodison Park, while personnel of the calibre of Thomas Gravesen would be heartened if van der Meyde signs.

But that has to be reflected on the pitch. Everton gleaned more home wins last term - eight - than seventh-placed Charlton, yet only the bottom club Wolves managed fewer points than their 10 on their travels.

They will draw encouragement today from the fact that Palace managed only two home wins in their last season in the Premiership, the first of which was secured at the 16th attempt in 1997-'98.

But Iain Dowie is rapidly wresting away Moyes's mantle as British football's brightest young manager and success for the visitors this afternoon would be timely.

"This is a great chance for us, a chance to do something positive," added Moyes. "It's a case of mentally starting again. The sooner we get off the mark, the better we'll feel. It's not a six-pointer, though I can understand why people think it.

"People are drawing conclusions. I hope to prove them wrong."