Steve_E

That's why for now I'd like to see a midfield with Schneiderlin (or Besic) sitting next to Klaassen as a box to box runner. Sigurdsson at ten. Sandro as the centre forward and Vlasic on the wing. No idea who on the other wing. But Mirallas, Lennon, DCL and Niasse aren't getting this team out of a relegation struggle.

I think the most vital needs are up front. I think in other areas of the team a little tinkering with who plays where and with whom and who doesn't and more drills on defensive shape might be enough to get by, but the team is mightily lacking in genuine class up front. The team needs players with both pace AND ability at centre forward and on the wings. However, it's going to be a struggle to get those kinds of players in in the January window.

Off-topic: to the mods, any chance my display name could be changed? Used to be Steve_E, forgot my password and now the display name seems to have changed.

You could put whatever manager you want in front of these players and they could play as hard as they like, they don't have the quality.

Koeman needed to get a quick, change of pace Willian/Hazard type of player rather than three slow players for the same position in Rooney, Sigurdsson and Klaassen.

'Pas' means 'not'. They don't want to let him leave.

You're also forgetting Cleverley, who if he plays, should probably play as an attacking midfielder, though I wouldn't mind an upgrade on him anyway.

I'm hoping they are able to sell Cleverley and that they can get an actual quality number ten (I really want Everton to get Hakim Ziyech) in to replace him. McCarthy I'm not so sure about. In that position we've got just three players I trust: Barry (but we need to remember that he'll probably need to be replaced next summer anyway), Gana and McCarthy. Besic is out injured for the best part of the year, Gibson is immobile and injury-prone and Davies unproven.

Don't much care about Moyes, was mainly sharing it because he seems to have given away that McCarthy could be off to Watford.

“I’ve got full faith in the owner [Ellis Short],” said Moyes, who is hoping to conclude deals with Rubin Kazan for the midfielder Yann M’Vila and Barnsley for the defender Alfie Mawson and desperately needs a new striker to complement Jermain Defoe. “But there’s no doubt that our budget is not at the level of many other clubs you see buying players at the moment. “I’m confident we’ll get a few in before 1 September but the quality of the players that Sunderland can get at the moment is probably not what I’ve had in the Premier League. Not even close. You look at our competitors and what they’re spending and we’re having to deal differently.” He illustrated his point by explaining Sunderland could not compete with Watford for Everton’s James McCarthy. “I don’t know if we’d have that kind of cash to spend on just one player,” he said. “I hope it won’t be the case in a couple of years’ time.” Source: The Guardian.

I'd pay over the odds to get him, get that goalkeeper position sorted for the best part of the next decade.

Barry. By far the best player in the first half, got the winning goal in the second half.

We need better midfielders than McCarthy to compete with the big boys. We need an Eric Dier type still imo: a mobile and fairly strong, but tactically disciplined sitter with a good range of forward passing. McCarthy and Barry are lacking in some of those aspects. Having said that, we should sell off the shite ones (Gibson, Cleverley, probably Besic too) before even thinking of moving on the decently productive ones.

I liked him vs Portugal at the Euros. Good target man.

How much longer are we gonna have to suffer Koné up top? It's been how many seasons now? Do something about it!

Not on the bench.

Good defensive shape and the quality on the ball was there as well in the beginning with Barkley's excellent free kick, an excellent cross from Baines for Barkley, etc. Hope the 70% fit thing was meant to motivate the players, cause they'll need to keep on running in that second half, especially if Spurs throw on another striker.

I'd very much like him too, especially for that money. He can't really play anywhere else than as a number ten, so Barkley would have to move to another position or to the bench though.

Lovren had a good season, mate, back to how he performed for Southampton. And yes, Smalling is one of the top centre backs in the league.

According to Dominic King, they still want a centre forward and a goal keeper after Bolasie (left wing) and Koné (centre back).

If McGeady, Cleverley and Oviedo are average Premier League players then we should have won the league last season, because they're three of the worst players in the Everton squad. For me, McGeady is very near the bottom of Premier League players, Oviedo isn't all that much better than him, and Cleverley isn't much better than Oviedo. For me, Ashley Williams is an average (to slightly above average) Premier League centre back. A bit better than let's say Ryan Shawcross or our own Phil Jagielka, similar to José Fonte, a bit worse than Scott Dann, but they're all on pretty much the same tier for me. I think of someone like Winston Reid or Dejan Lovren as an above-average centre back, someone like Chris Smalling or Toby Alderweireld as a top Premier League centre back. To me, we don't have any top Premier League players (Lukaku probably comes closest as a centre forward) and more below-average than above-average players.

Given the fact that Bolasie and Koné are clear targets, left wing and centre back are two positions they're clearly still wanting to improve. Koeman has confirmed to the Echo that the centre forward position is another one they're looking at. That leaves just one spot, one where they're not sure whether they really need someone, but where they probably have someone in mind that they would love if he were to become available (that could be someone like Mata for example).

I'm not going to follow FourthOfficial either, because they don't know shit.

Average players are on a level in between two extremes. All three of those are well below-average players.

How would you define average?