Two goals each from Jack Rodwell and Louis Saha ensured a comfortable 4-0 victory against Sigma Olomouc in the Europa League play-off first leg on Thursday night.
The result went some way to easing the stress that had built up at Goodison Park ahead of the match.
Beaten 6-1 by the Gunners last weekend, they went into the match without central defender Joleon Lescott.
He was dropped by manager David Moyes for a bad attitude after Manchester City had two bids for his services rejected.
Neville was pleased with the way the players responded after a difficult few days.
He said: "There is a long way to go but it was more like an Everton performance. The manager asked for a reaction and put us under pressure. He told us in no uncertain terms we had not been good enough and standards at the club were higher than Saturday.
"We got back to basics and were hard to beat. We had to be a team and we were. But we can still improve and still get better.
"The pleasing thing near the end was that there was a bit of a swagger to our play. Our opponents were no mugs and for the first 20 minutes we were a bit nervous.
"But once we scored the first goal we controlled the game and it puts us in a great position to progress to the next stage."
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