Firstly welcome Chris, you've picked a fantastic albeit frustrating club to follow at this moment. To start - top 4 club fully, it's hard to say, premier league is incredibly competitive of late and there are 6/7 teams who could finish top 4 ( chelsea and Man City are the only certainties ). We over acheived slightly last season, we haven't been in Europe for a while and maybe perhaps our expectations have been inflated by us the fans seeing Everton play some crisp possession/passing football resulting in free flowing goals last year, when in truth we are still in transition BUT on the right track, we have a strong core of young exciting players that once they mature just a little bit more we will be a force and strongly push for the top 4 more consistently.
The players have learnt how to Play Martinez it's just the other teams have learnt how to play us, it's an exciting challenge the next few months for us