BACK IN MAY, SHORTLY AFTER David Moyes had been named manager of the year for the second time in three seasons in the wake of Everton’s remarkable fourth-place finish in the Barclays Premiership, Bill Kenwright spoke glowingly of his young manager. “He is a miracle man if ever there was one,” the Everton chairman had reasoned.

Four months on, with Everton rooted to the bottom of the Premiership and wondering where their next goal is going to come from, let alone their next win, Kenwright could be accused of pre-empting fate, for a miracle is what his club appear to need.

Moyes had hoped that the 1-0 win against Dynamo Bucharest in the Uefa Cup on Thursday would prove a springboard to better things, but against a Manchester City team hardly brimming with inspiration yesterday, things just got a whole lot worse.

This was Everton’s fifth successive defeat in the league in which they have failed to score. They have lost 16 of their past 23 matches and have taken only 24 points from their 25 Premiership games since the turn of the year Only Arsenal have been in the top flight longer than Everton, but if the Merseyside club carry on in much the same vein, they could be spending next season in the second tier of English football for the first time since 1954.

It may have taken a wonder strike from that most unlikely of sources — Danny Mills — for City to breach Everton’s defence, before Darius Vassell put the result beyond doubt at the death, but Moyes’s men never looked capable of winning this match and were probably flattered by the three shots on target they did manage.

Moyes will hope that his team’s fortunes will have changed for the better come January, but whether they have or not, the manager must rectify his failure to sign a striker in the summer by bringing in at least one in the transfer window. James McFadden and Marcus Bent, who started against City, and Duncan Ferguson and James Beattie, who were introduced to no effect in the second half, are honest enough competitors, but one goal in seven Premiership games is testament to their lack of threat.

Moyes still has the backing of Kenwright, and rightly, even if some supporters are starting to lose patience, but the pressure is clearly starting to take its toll on the Scot. “It’s too early to talk about (relegation), but we want to get away from the position we’re in,” Moyes said. “I’ve had lots of tests and I will have lots in the future. I think we’re beginning to see who are the ones who can handle it and who can’t. We’ve got to try and find a combination that’s going to get us some goals, but the boys are obviously lacking confidence at the moment.”

Three successive defeats, the most notable of those coming in the Carling Cup against Doncaster Rovers, had given City some cause for concern, but while this was hardly a return to form, it was at least the result Stuart Pearce was looking for.

Neither team had threatened in a lifeless first 70 minutes before Mills, out of favour of late, collected a square pass from Lee Croft and rammed a sublime 35-yard drive beyond Nigel Martyn for his first goal since December 2002.

“It was a nip-and-tuck game that needed a wonder strike like that,” Pearce said. “Millsy’s come up with a very un-Danny Mills strike. I was shouting ‘get back, get back’ at him, but then he decides to hit a shot like that. Even without the goal, that was one of his best performances for us this season.”

Kevin Kilbane had an effort well saved by David James while Sylvain Distin acrobatically cleared David Weir’s shot off the line under pressure from Beattie.

Vassell added a second late on when he toe-poked in a perfect pass from Joey Barton, who was outstanding in midfield alongside the equally impressive Stephen Ireland, who was making his first Premiership start. “Their full back scores from 40 yards and we couldn’t bundle one in from four yards — that’s how it’s going for us at the moment,” Moyes said.

With Tottenham Hotspur and Chelsea to come next, it is hard to envisage when Everton’s luck will change.