The 50-year-old's appointment as Sir Alex Ferguson's successor as Manchester United manager represents a gargantuan step for the plain-talking Scot who failed to win any silverware for Everton in more than a decade of hard graft on Merseyside.
While his record at Everton, who he steered to fourth in 2005, to the 2009 FA Cup final and regular top-eight placings is solid rather than spectacular, merely finishing above Liverpool will not cut the mustard at United where failure to win at least one trophy each season became almost unthinkable under Ferguson.
Despite the obvious lack of tangible success on his CV, however, everything about Moyes's persona from a fierce work ethic to a brooding air of authority and his fixed Glaswegian stare mark him out as manager straight from the Ferguson mould.
Ferguson himself has kept close tabs on the work being done by Moyes and was instrumental in selecting him as the man to take over the wheel of arguably the world's biggest soccer club.
"When we discussed the candidates that we felt had the right attributes we unanimously agreed on David Moyes," Ferguson said on Thursday as his replacement was confirmed.
"David is a man of great integrity with a strong work ethic. I've admired his work for a long time and approached him as far back as 1998 to discuss the position of assistant manager here.
"He was a young man then at the start of his career and has since gone on to do a magnificent job at Everton."
Moyes declined Ferguson's offer to be his young apprentice when he was player-coach with Preston North End and the fact he said no spoke volumes about his determination to learn his trade the hard way and forge his own identity as a coach.
After narrowly failing to get Preston into the top flight in 2001, Everton came calling in March 2002 and Moyes accepted the challenge, quickly steering them away from trouble.
In his first full season, he took the Toffees to seventh.
He suffered a crisis in the 2003/04 season when a fractured dressing room caused Everton to flirt with relegation but he survived and the following season they cracked the top-four cartel at the expense of Liverpool, only to lose in a Champions League qualifiying tie to Spain's Villarreal.
Since then Everton, despite the financial strait-jacket imposed on Moyes, have finished an average of seventh in the Premier League and this year should finish sixth, above Liverpool.
NEW ROLE
Now, 14 years after passing up the chance to work alongside Ferguson, Moyes will instead find the 71-year-old Scot observing him from an upstairs boardroom in his new role as a club ambassador.
The ambitious Moyes gives the impression of a man confident in his own ability and prepared to do things his own way, but stamping his own authority on a squad full of serial title winners assembled by Ferguson will test his mettle.
Odds of 9/1 are being offered for Ferguson to appear in the dugout next season to lend Moyes a hand and while that scenario is unlikely, there is little doubt the old master will be keeping a close eye on his countrym
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