After bringing Preston North End F.C to within a game of returning to the highest level of English league football for the first time in forty years (they lost in the playoff final to Blackburn Rovers F.C) he was hired to take charge of Everton F.C, then barely staying in the FA Premier League, and turned them around to finish toward the top of the table in 2002/2003, helped by the debut of Wayne Rooney.