It is a long time since Everton fans have looked forward to the second half of a season with relish, but 2008 cannot come soon enough after David Moyes’s side reached the midway point of their Premier League campaign with a comfortable win over Bolton Wanderers.

With places in the semi-finals of the Carling Cup and the last 32 of the Uefa Cup confirmed, Everton start the second half of the season six points better off than at the same stage last term, when they went on to secure a sixth-place finish in the table.

Phil Neville, the captain, used his programme notes to indicate how 2008 could be Everton’s year and who dare argue with him after he overcame a virus to score his first goal since December 30 last year to set Everton on the way to a first double over Bolton since the 1963-64 season.

Tim Cahill’s eighth goal of the campaign sealed the points in the battle of the Uefa Cup clubs, but Moyes knows that the real test of how far his side have progressed this season will come on Saturday when Arsenal visit Goodison Park.

“If we hope to still be involved in cup competitions in April and May then we need to continue to pick up points in the Premier League, which is always vitally important,” Moyes said.

“The players are playing with a great deal of confidence and there is a general good feeling within the club. We will only continue that by winning and showing the same consistency we have shown in the last month or so.”

This was by no means a vintage Everton performance. Indeed their first-half display was sluggish at best. Recent history suggests Boxing Day has proved a day to forget for Everton and, to judge from the football they served up in the first 45 minutes yesterday, their poor sequence of results on December 26 looked like continuing before Neville intervened.

Before this fixture, the Merseyside club had won only one of their past seven matches on Boxing Day. Bolton arrived at Goodison Park having failed to win their previous 11 away fixtures in the league yet it was not until the first minute of the second half that Jussi Jaaskelainen, their goalkeeper, was forced into a serious save.

There might even have been a different outcome had a long-range effort by Ricardo Gardner, whose last goal in the top tier came on Boxing Day 2002, been on target. Instead, his sixteenth-minute attempt flew narrowly wide of the post with Tim Howard, the Everton goalkeeper, grasping at air.

Everton went into their 300th home game in the Premier League having had their 13-match unbeaten run in all competitions ended by Cristiano Ronaldo’s late penalty for Manchester United on Sunday.

Moyes reacted to that defeat by making two changes to the side that lost at Old Trafford, with Thomas Gravesen handed a rare place in the starting lineup while Mikel Arteta returned from illness.

Yet Everton were a pale shadow of the side who have has impressed recently as both sides struggled to string a couple of passes together in a tedious first half.

Arteta had a 21st-minute attempt deflected behind for a corner while Gravesen also went close with a volley, but that was as good as it got for Everton before Moyes’s half-time pep talk inspired his players to victory.

Neville had spent Christmas Day in bed after being struck down by a bug but, after a goalless first half, the England player found the perfect cure when Jaaskelainen allowed his floated effort in the 51st minute to sail into the net.

If that was not bad enough for Bolton, they fell farther behind when Cahill stabbed home a low cross by the impressive Joleon Lescott in the 70th minute.

Gary Megson, the Bolton manager, admitted that his players had performed below the standards he expected from them. “It was probably more luck than judgment that we went in at half-time still level,” he said.

“It was a bad day for us. The first goal meant we had to chop and change a bit. We tried different formations, but nothing worked for us. We’ve got to find an answer to our poor away form.”

How they lined up

Everton (4-4-1-1): T Howard - P Neville (sub: T Hibbert, 86min), J Yobo, P Jagielka, J Lescott – M Arteta, L Carsley, T Gravesen (sub: A Johnson, 79) S Pienaar – T Cahill – Yakubu Ayegbeni (sub: J Vaughan, 90). Substitutes not used: S Wessels, N Valente.

Bolton Wanderers (4-4-2): J Jaaskelainen – N Hunt, A Meïté, A O’Brien, R Gardner – K Davies, K Nolan (sub: J O’Brien, 75), I Campo (sub: J L Samuel, 57) D Guthrie (sub: G McCann, 57) – N Anelka, E-H Diouf. Substitutes not used: A Al Habsi, S Giannakopoulos. Booked: O’Brien, Diouf, Nolan. Referee: R Styles

What they need

Everton Despite an impressive first half of the season, David Moyes, the manager, is still lacking depth in midfield and needs to strengthen this department if his side are to finish off the good work that they have started.

Bolton The club have now conceded ten times in their past three away games in the league and a defender or two has got to be Gary Megson’s priority if they are to remain at this level.