Pienaar would seal more of the same but 2 more would take us to the next level

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What would be good:
Heitinga STAYS - Donovan and a Striker in OR Heitinga is sold, Donovan, Centre back and Striker in, maybe Holtby (or go for him in Jan if hes still at Schalke - his contract runs out next summer, so cost may be lower).

What will happen: Heitinga is sold...
 
I think we would need to bring in a backup striker by selling fat vic then good ball playing right winger and loan a left back so we can switch play sometimes as we do play some good football when Baines is on the bench . Not saying get rid off Baines because he's mint and gives us attacking partnership with pienaar and will always be first choice but we can rest him sometimes and can change our football to a direct style against some off the Lower teams. I think with this setup we could achieve 5th but you never know because the teams are getting higher points than previous years
 
Id be annoyed if we won the league, who would we have a go at then, lets be honest the funs in the chase and posting our best 11 and being football geniuses.

Bet we would all fume at Marwood for not signing Hazard.
 
It comes down to squad strength and quality of manager.

We have a very thin squad which cannot compete over 40+ games in a season with those around us or even beneath us like Sunderland and Stoke. It doesn't matter if you have Jelavic and Pienaar from the start of the season this time if they get injured, you can never count on things like that.

And the manager? Well for whatever his strengths, David Moyes is not a manager who will take advantage of positions of strength like having a fully fit squad early on, he thrives more when having to make do. With a fully fit squad in September he'd still be pissing about, bringing players in slowly and whatnot. Plus he can't win a big game. You can't win trophies or finish in the places that matter without winning big games against immediate rivals... like Liverpool.
 
What would be good:
Heitinga STAYS - Donovan and a Striker in OR Heitinga is sold, Donovan, Centre back and Striker in, maybe Holtby (or go for him in Jan if hes still at Schalke - his contract runs out next summer, so cost may be lower).

What will happen: Heitinga is sold...

If Heitinga does go, then I think Duffy is adequate cover, he looks like hes got all the attributes to be a premier league centre back and it with him we save on the transfer fee and wages of a replacement.
 
If Heitinga does go, then I think Duffy is adequate cover, he looks like hes got all the attributes to be a premier league centre back and it with him we save on the transfer fee and wages of a replacement.

He's barely played at the top level, how can anybody possibly say he has 'all the attributes' ?

He made some mistakes in those games too. I like the lad but come on.
 
I have never understood this 'the next level' talk. Nor 'taking us forward'.
New signings are never a certainty to succeed. And a lot of the time new signings do not pay off instantly.
 
If Heitinga does go, then I think Duffy is adequate cover, he looks like hes got all the attributes to be a premier league centre back and it with him we save on the transfer fee and wages of a replacement.

He's played 4 Premier League games, we can't say that he would be 'adequate cover' until we know what he's truly made of like; he's looked decent in his games so far, but to say he can adequately replace one of our best if not the best centre back in the team is quite a statement.

Hell I'm just going to come out and say this, unless we add more than Pienaar 8th or less is on the cards. City, United, Arsenal, Spurs, Chelsea, Newcastle and Liverpool all have stronger squads than us; we can't hide behind the fact that we're Everton ffs, these teams are unfortunately far more in depth in terms of squad numbers with in many ways more quality on the field. The right side needs to be completely remade in reality if we want to challenge for the far higher places but if we're looking for around 6th/7th then increased squad depth is an utter necessity.













































But because our names Ebepton champos league is on.
 
If we sign a good right winger (possibly Donovan), there's no reason why we can't finish in the top 5. In Baines, Fellaini, Jelavic and Pienaar, we have a bunch of players who are the envy of 90% of the league in their favoured positions. Baines being arguably the best left back in the league, Fellaini arguably the best all round midfielder and Jelavic looking like a 20+ goal a season striker. Plus Pienaar has techical ability that you simply won't find outside the top 5. Often overlooked (as this is the EPL) in favour of pace and strength etc, see Hoilett, J.

It's what set us apart from the Sunderlands and Fulhams last season. Attacking nous. Those teams had e.g. Mclean and ran out of ideas, whereas we still had barrels full of creativity from our little South African snide.

We need some wing balance in the first XI and a little bit of cover. Naismith is the perfect signing in that respect, being able to cover three positions that need covering in AM, RM and striker. Donovan and another decent player for back up and from there, our start to the season dictates the limit to our success really.
 
If we were to sign Donovan without selling anybody else i'd be happy as larry and wouldn't moan until at least November, but it won't happen.

It's sad that some people used Baines staying as an excuse to have a go at ITKs or brag about how they were right, because i have a funny feeling it will come back to bite them. Notice how the rumour of Heitinga going only sprung up after it was confirmed by people on here that Baines was a no go for United. Strange that, isn't it ? It's almost as if the club had said 'right, Leighton wants to stay, the little s**t, who else can we flog ?'.

Keep in mind that were it not for Rangers' misfortune this past year then we would almost certainly be without Jelavic AND Naismith. A bit scary to think that we are only in a position of mediocrity because of the sudden implosion of a club to whom we otherwise have little relation. If Rangers had managed to fight of HM Revenue for another 12 months then we could have finished 10th and the prospect of losing our best players would be more than a fear, it would more than likely be a reality.

The rollercoaster summer hasn't ended yet, in fact we're barely out of the first loop.
 
The thing is with this debate is the second half of last season we would have beaten any team put out in front of us, okay we got beat by Arsenal but we battered them, they got the luck and we had a fair goal disallowed. We threw away the game against the ****e which we all know.. But if we keep the squad as it is, add pienaar to naismith in and try to get Donovan and maybe another striker, we're without a doubt in with a shout for a top 5 finish and a cup final(hopefully not bottle this one). I'm really excited to see how we do next year because there's been all this publicity of how Rodgers plays 'football' but second half of last season I thought we played a fair bit to, even Neville stopped doing one of them stupid huffs at kick of for once. Add pienaar and Donovan, another striker if we're lucky, keep the squad as it is and we'll get 4th 5th 6th and a cup. Top 3 is already nailed on Chelsea united city (in whatever order) but the 4th place is up for grabs between us spurs newcastle and the ****e. Game on for next season, got a good feeling about this one.
 
Liking the optimism on here from everyone but lets be honest, we may have signed Pienaar but we have lost Cahill (forget his poor season last year, he still got everyone 'on their game' with his infectious determination and effort) and Drenthe whose goals won us some games last season. I'd say on a whole season basis we are weaker as at the start of last season we also had Arteta and Saha who won us a few games (Blackburn and Fulham off the top of my head)

This season will all depend on the likes of Barkley, Rodwell, Anichebe and Gueye stepping up and putting in some good performances IMO
 
In fairness, last season when Cahill moved to the bench in matches shown mainly in the 4-4 Fellaini got everyone's arses in gear and got them moving, closed down everything and didn't give up. Heart of our team next year I reckon
 
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