Manchester City 2 Everton 0: Football managers are usually inordinately fond of decorating club corridors with motivational slogans but it appears David Moyes has somehow neglected to daub "fortune favours the brave" across Everton's walls.

Indeed it was all too easy to see why Moyes' ridiculously cautious side have scored only one Premiership goal this season and are bottom of a table in which they finished fourth in spring. True, the visiting manager, invariably an eager subscriber to 4-5-1, varied things a little by deploying James McFadden as a withdrawn striker behind Marcus Bent but McFadden is really a midfielder and, like Bent, he failed to provide David James with any cause for concern.

James was so under-employed that he might as well have turned up in the pair of pyjamas worn by one fan in protest at the excessively early kick-off.

"We don't look as if we can score too many goals; that's for sure," admitted Moyes afterwards. "I was hoping to contain City in the first half and use it as a base to attack later. It didn't happen but we're finding out who can handle the pressure and who can't."

McFadden clearly cannot cope with his reinvention as a striker and Stuart Pearce was delighted to see him preferred to Duncan Ferguson. "To be honest, Big Dunc starting on the bench was a bit of a lift for us," reflected City's manager.

Tellingly Ferguson - who, despite lacking mobility, is no stranger to scoring - seemed to become so irked by his substitute status that at one point he sidled up to Moyes in the technical area and had a quiet word.

With Everton's area invariably guarded by a defence evidently instructed to focus on damage limitation, long-range speculation always looked one of the likelier routes to goal. So it proved when Danny Mills finally remembered he is supposed to be an overlapping right back.

Once Lee Croft's pass left Mills in space, the former England international unleashed a right-foot, 30-yard shot which flew into the far top corner of Nigel Martyn's goal. It was Mills's first goal for City; he had not previously scored since December 2002, when he was a Leeds player.

"You don't expect a full back to score from 30 yards," lamented Moyes whereas Pearce revelled in the vindication of his decision to drop Nedum Onuoha, a highly promising right back, and replace him with the 28-year-old, whose career has seemed on the wane.

One goal duly led to another, with Darius Vassell collecting Joey Barton's pass and luring Martyn off his line before beating him with his left foot in the last minutes.

"We didn't play as well as we can," admitted Pearce, whose side had lost their previous three games. "But I was proud to see kids from our academy - (Stephen Ireland, Stephen Jordan and Croft) - holding their own out there."

No one did better than Ireland, a 19-year-old midfielder from Cork making his first Premiership start in place of the injured Claudio Reyna. Ireland's surprisingly mature passing ensured he outshone not only Everton's Tim Cahill but also Barton, who found his customary style cramped by Phil Neville.

"Their manager's too good for Everton to stay bottom," Pearce insisted. "They don't lack effort but they're maybe short of confidence."

As Moyes conceded: "There's a danger of my players starting to believe they can't score."

Perhaps it is time to get scrawling on those walls - or even offer "Big Dunc" an entire 90 minutes.