Everton's David Moyes has been named manager of the year after guiding his team to fourth in the Premier League to earn a place in next season's Champions League, Sky Sports News reported on Tuesday.

Moyes won the League Managers Association award in the face of strong competition from Chelsea's Jose Mourinho, whose team won their first league title for 50 years, and Rafael Benitez who has steered Liverpool to the Champions League final.

It is the second time the Scot has received the honour after his success two seasons ago when his side missed out on qualification for the UEFA [Images] Cup on the last day of the season.

The LMA annual award goes to the manager, who can be from any division, "deemed to have achieved the most taking into consideration the resources available to him".

Everton struggled in the 2003/04 season and sold England [Images] striker Wayne Rooney [Images] to Manchester United [Images] for 27 million pounds in August last year but Moyes remained optimistic.

"At the start of the season I was thinking to myself, 'How can we avoid relegation?'" Moyes said at the ceremony in Nottingham.

"Then we lost our best player when Wayne Rooney left for Manchester United. A year ago, I was just relieved to have escaped relegation, so it's amazing how football can turn around."

He had limited funds to strengthen his squad before the 2004/05 campaign, signing only Australian midfielder Tim Cahill and striker Marcus Bent for modest fees.

Moyes suffered another blow in January when influential Denmark midfielder Thomas Gravesen left to join Real Madrid [Images] and the team's form dipped initially.

Despite the loss of key players, Moyes created an impressive team spirit to defy the critics and took great satisfaction in finishing a place above arch-rivals Liverpool in the league.

"There's absolutely no doubt that Everton are the best team in the city this season," he said after Liverpool's defeat at Arsenal [Images] this month handed Everton a Champions League qualifying round place.

The 42-year-old joined Everton from Preston North End in March 2002 as the successor to Walter Smith, who was sacked.

Born in Glasgow, where he started his playing career with Celtic, Moyes also played for Cambridge United, Bristol City, Shrewsbury and Dunfermline, making over 550 league appearances.

He finished his playing career at Preston where he stayed to take over as manager from Gary Peters in 1998 and in May 2000 he led them to the Second Division (now League 1) championship.

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