Everton: title contenders

[evilwebby]

Read the thread title and thought i'd accidentally wandered onto RAWK. Title contenders? How a word with yourself. Just like Liverpool, we are nowhere near title contenders. Top 3 will be City, Chelsea + Arsenal (unless they get unlucky with injuries). The rest are a distance behind.

We might be having a superb season and playing some great football but Lukaku, Barry and Deulofeu are not Everton players, they are on loan. Take them out of our season so far and where would we be? Mid table is my guess. Barry is the only player out of those we might sign and he's 32.

Looking at our squad, all the below have to be replaced too,

Distin - 35
Piennar - 31
Osman - 32
Jagielka - 32
Howard - 34

McCarthy was immense last night, Barkley is a serious talent and hopefully a lot to come from Stones.

But this football club and Martinez in particular are going to have to find 4/5 key players in the next year or two with no money (or sell Barkley).

Yet these are the players who have put us where we are at the moment.

 

[Sozzled]

Along with Aston Villa? Don't be daft. What would you say if the RS started claiming the same?

To win the Prem requires a deeper squad than that which we currently possess. Not one of our starting eleven is under genuine pressure from another member of the squad for his place, and until that changes we cannot truly be regarded as title contenders. Let's see what Martinez can do in January before we start putting ribbons on any silverware.

We aren't far off though mate. Another couple of additions in January adds more squad depth. I think it's very unrealistic to win the league this season. Top 4 is definitely on though.

 

[billycopper]

Read the thread title and thought i'd accidentally wandered onto RAWK. Title contenders? How a word with yourself. Just like Liverpool, we are nowhere near title contenders. Top 3 will be City, Chelsea + Arsenal (unless they get unlucky with injuries). The rest are a distance behind.

We might be having a superb season and playing some great football but Lukaku, Barry and Deulofeu are not Everton players, they are on loan. Take them out of our season so far and where would we be? Mid table is my guess. Barry is the only player out of those we might sign and he's 32.

Looking at our squad, all the below have to be replaced too,

Distin - 35
Piennar - 31
Osman - 32
Jagielka - 32
Howard - 34

McCarthy was immense last night, Barkley is a serious talent and hopefully a lot to come from Stones.

But this football club and Martinez in particular are going to have to find 4/5 key players in the next year or two with no money (or sell Barkley).

We're not clinical enough to be in the shake up to win the league but Chelsea and City have major flaws too and it's looking to be an open season.

We don't need to consider next season. If Lukaku, Barry and Deulofeu can help us achieve CL football this season we'll be able to attract a higher calibre of player next summer.

I imagine that Distin will retire at the end of the season but the others could have another 3 years left at the top each. So we can afford to evolve rather than having to sell the family silver to replace half the team at once.