David Moyes hopes to turn back time in a bid to recreate the season in which Everton qualified for the Champions League.
The Goodison Park club memorably finished fourth in the Premier League in the 2004/05 campaign after winning seven of their opening 10 matches.
But since that time Everton have perennially made slow starts to their seasons to leave them playing catch-up.
Prior to 2004/05, Moyes took his squad on a pre-season tour of the USA and he will repeat that formula this season, with a game against DC United scheduled on 23 July, in the hope that it is a basis for success in 2011/12.
"I am going to try and follow as close as possible the path we took in pre-season in the year we qualified for the Champions League as far as preparation is concerned," Moyes told the Liverpool Echo.
"That was our first year in America, we will go there again. That is the one year we got off to a really good start.
"Last year I changed it. The order in which I do the work, we took games early, we did the work in the middle, I changed to somehow see if I could find a solution and you couldn't say it didn't work we just didn't score the goals. The lack of goals in the first six to eight games cost us.
"So maybe how we start has nothing to do with our preparations and sometimes for all the things you change, it is down to personnel. Most of our problems have been down to not having personnel in early enough."
Moyes therefore recognises the importance of increasing the size of his squad this summer and he hopes to complete his activity in the opening months of the transfer window.
"If we are going to have any business I will try and get it done and in place as quickly as possible," he said. "But we'll try to go back to what we did in 2004/05 as well.
"Our record at the end of seasons is a good thing in as much that if we can get a good start, get in a good position, then Everton look as though they are someone who finishes the season strongly.
"But every year I say, 'can we get this good start?' and we haven't."
