Some really revealing quotes by Moyesy in todays echo:
NOBODY doubts the strength of Everton’s current squad - but even the manager admits that some question marks still linger in key areas.
As he prepares his players to hit the ground running against Wolves at Goodison Park today, David Moyes will be hoping his strikers start answering some of their doubters.
Main man Louis Saha has all the ability, but his goals largely dried up in the second half of the last campaign. Jermaine Beckford is untested at this level, and Yakubu is not yet fit after his World Cup campaign with Nigeria and has suffered his own slump in form lately.
It’s a dilemma in a key part of the field which may not cause the Everton boss sleepless nights, but he accepts is far from ideal.
"Louis is up there with the best players I’ve worked with," he says. "He’s a top, top player and he’ll play his part. Last year we got our value from him and if we hadn't kept him where would we have gone and got another striker of his class?
"He got 12 or 14 goals last season, but he needs to get back among the goals. They came in the first half of the season last time.
He needs to get back to trying to score.
"We’ve said before that if we had big money we'd go out and try to buy a top quality centre forward but we don't have that, so we have to look at other routes and get the best with what we have."
When what you’ve got is very little, a free transfer for a player with Jermaine Beckford’s potential made sense, and Moyes is hoping it proves to be another diamond unearthed.
"Beckford is settling in fine," says Moyes. "We’ve given him a chance from the lower leagues and I keep saying that nobody is 100% sure where it’ll go, but he wanted the opportunity and I wanted to give it to him.
"He looks fine in training, he scores goals in training and he’ll see plenty of match time and from that we’ll decided if he’s been able to step up.
"He knows the club has done it before. There’s a feeling that if they can do it Everton will give them the chance to show it. He gives us an option.
"The best way for him to come in is to break in slowly into the Premier League.
and he’s well in contention.
If he plays and didn't play well it doesn't mean he wasn’t good enough - it takes time. It’s the same with most players."
Then there is the player who causes Evertonians to scratch their heads regularly, Yakubu. More than capable of scoring plenty of goals at the top flight, yet struggling for form and fitness, his future at Goodison remains in doubt after interest from West Ham.
"At the moment it looks like he’s staying," he says. "Yak’s getting into shape, and if he’s still here after the deadline then he will be used.
"My gut feeling is that he will stay here. He is getting back into shape. We need him in the best shape as we can and then when we do we’ll get him playing. I don't think the boys who played in the World Cup have all shown it, maybe not physically too bad but maybe mentally not there just yet.
"It’s not the World Cup alone that has affected them, it’s the length of the season, the length of the tournament, the short holiday and then nearly straight back into it.
"It’s not just here. Players like Wayne Rooney might take a while to get back their form and their focus as much as anything but they’ll come good."
It is not only the strikers who Moyes will ask for more from against Mick McCarthy’s side.
His midfield was stifled at Ewood Park last week, and failed to create enough chances to open up a tough Blackburn defence.
"We need the creative players to play," he says. "They didn’t last week and we weren’t progressive enough. I’m looking for better.
"In truth Mikel Arteta is probably not 100%, and Fellaini certainly wasn’t quite there but we needed him to do a job in the circumstances at Blackburn.
"Steven Pienaar’s probably not quite right since he got back from the World Cup yet, so we had a few ongoing things but we knew that.
I thought we defended well and did the job. We dealt with the long throws and balls in the box but it was the other end we didn't do it."
As he attempts to find the right starting eleven, Moyes has more options than almost ever before during his reign.
But can this have an adverse effect?
"I’d prefer to have the bigger squad," he says. "This time last year with the amount of injuries we had we were really fighting to put teams out.
"We had lots of different problems. Yes (having a big squad gives you some problems) but none of which I’m concerned about."
One aspect of a bigger squad the manager ruefully admits is the ability to perform well in European competition, an avenue not available to him this season.
And Moyes remains unsure that missing out, due to the eighth place finish last term, can be considered a benefit.
" I would always say I’d like to be in Europe. If you said to me would I take it now - I definitely would and now we would have had players fit and able to make it work.
"Last year we didn’t. I think if we were in Europe there might have been a reason to add more players, but I don't think we need to at the moment."
