Moyes named England's top manager
 |  Moyes stood out as top contender for England's manager of the year |
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LONDON, England -- Everton's David Moyes has been named England's manager of the year after taking his team to fourth in the Premier League and a Champions League place.
Moyes won the League Managers Association (LMA) award in the face of strong competition from Chelsea's Jose Mourinho and Rafael Benitez of Liverpool.
Everton avoided relegation in the 2003/04 season and sold England striker Wayne Rooney to Manchester United for 27 million pounds ($49.59) last August.
The LMA annual award goes to the manager "deemed to have achieved the most taking into consideration the resources available to him".
Moyes 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.
He suffered another blow in January when influential Denmark midfielder Thomas Gravesen left to join Real Madrid 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.
Benitez came into contention after guiding Liverpool to the Champions League final while Mourinho led Chelsea to their first championship for 50 years.
"There's absolutely no doubt that Everton are the best team in the city this season," he said after Liverpool's defeat at Arsenal this month handed Everton a Champions League place.
Moyes, 42, joined Everton from Preston North End in March 2002 as the successor to Walter Smith who was sacked.
Born in Scotland, 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.
