Premier League 2017-18 preview No7: Everton

Guardian writers’ predicted position 7th (NB: this is not necessarily Andy Hunter’s prediction but the average of our writers’ tips)

Last season’s position 7th

Odds to win the league (via Oddschecker) 80-1

Ronald Koeman identified this summer as crucial to his designs for Everton on day one of his reign. He has not been short-changed. In terms of investment, decisiveness in the transfer market, executing the business plan and generating optimism this has been an unprecedented window by Premier League standards at Goodison Park. Positivity abounds but a nagging questions lingers: is £150m the price of catching up with the elite of English football or simply keeping up? It will be one of the season’s more intriguing stories finding out.

With the major shareholder, Farhad Moshiri, having transformed the financial picture at Goodison and the director of football, Steve Walsh, delivering a required overhaul, Koeman has benefited from a recruitment drive like no Everton manager before. Almost £100m has been spent on seven additions to the first-team pool (though the Nigerian striker Henry Onyekuru has been loaned to Anderlecht until he can obtain a work permit next summer) and the protracted pursuit of the £50m-rated Gylfi Sigurdsson continues. Koeman also wants a striker, with Arsenal’s Olivier Giroud a target, plus a left-sided defender.

His aims after all of this? “It is still too soon to talk about top four,” the Everton manager has said. “What we’d like to do is continue what we did last season. Everyone is trying to get the best players. The big six in the Premier League will spend money as well but it is a good signal to everybody that we are on board and will try to give them that competition that we didn’t last season.” Everton will have an immediate opportunity to do so with the fixture list presenting Manchester City, Chelsea, Tottenham Hotspur and Manchester United in the first five games.

Koeman has accepted and welcomed the additional pressure that will follow his club’s heavy spending although, as Leighton Baines has also pointed out, Everton are not the only team investing and there remains a gap between the top six and last season’s seventh-placed finishers. The intent, however, is clear.

Everton are in the black, with their summer spending having raised more than £100m – including the add-ons agreed in various deals – through the sales of Romelu Lukaku, Gerard Deulofeu and Tom Cleverley. That figure could rise considerably should Ross Barkley, James McCarthy, Joel Robles and Oumar Niasse depart. But Everton’s ambition is not diminished by balancing the books.

The club have broken their transfer record twice to sign Jordan Pickford from Sunderland and Michael Keane from Burnley in deals that could rise to £30m. Pickford became the most expensive British goalkeeper in history when he signed on the same day as the £23.6m Ajax captain Davy Klaassen, an Everton contingent flying to Poland to ensure the deal was done before the European Under-21 Championship.

At 23, and with 31 Premier League appearances behind him in a poor Sunderland side, the keeper is young and inexperienced but offers immense potential. He also has Neville Southall’s blessing to rectify a glaring weakness in the Everton team last season for the next decade or more. Good enough.

Keane falls into a similar category at 24 years of age and the 22-year-old Sandro Ramírez, the Spain Under-21 forward signed from Málaga for a get-out clause of £5.2m, is another who reflects the long-term planning. The exception in the transfer strategy, of course, is the signing who dominates the spotlight, exports the club’s image and invites a multitude of questions about Koeman’s plans for the team this season: Wayne Rooney.

There was a romanticism surrounding Rooney’s return to his boyhood club after 13 years at Manchester United, at least for the many who have forgiven the manner of his exit, but Everton’s manager is no romantic when it comes to selecting a winning team. Barkley can vouch for that.

Koeman believes the 31-year-old was written off prematurely by United and England and will be rejuvenated at Goodison, providing invaluable experience and a winner’s mentality to Everton’s young talent. As Rooney’s competitive debut against Ruzomberok in the Europa League last week demonstrated, however, finding the best position for him to exert that influence will be as much of a challenge to Koeman as it was to José Mourinho and before him Louis van Gaal.

England’s all-time leading goalscorer started at centre-forward against the Slovakian side, who hope to deliver a fatal blow to Koeman’s European ambitions in the second leg on Thursday, before drifting out right, deep and left to orchestrate play behind Sandro.

Incidentally, not one player signed by Roberto Martínez started last week’s Europa League qualifier at Goodison, demonstrating the rate of change being implemented by his successor.

For all the investment in Koeman’s team they are yet to fill the 25-goal hole created by Lukaku’s move to Old Trafford for a fee rising to £90m. The balance and potency of Everton’s attack, as it stands, presents the greatest obstacle to their aim of competing for the Champions League places or gate-crashing the top six. Koeman wants another striker but also a broader solution to the lack of productivity he often lamented last season. He wants several players to reach double figures and believes, having signed players more attuned to his methods, Everton will do so. But he does require more presence and pace up front. It would be excessively optimistic to expect Rooney to roll back the years at centre-forward for an entire season or Sandro, who has made an impressive impact at Finch Farm, to slip seamlessly into English football.

Beyond Kevin Mirallas and Aaron Lennon, neither of whom are likely to be regular starters, there is little speed or penetration out wide for Everton. Yannick Bolasie would be a solution but is unlikely to return until midway through the campaign from a serious knee injury that has required two operations.

What Koeman is blessed with is leadership throughout the squad. As a former England and Manchester United captain Rooney is the most obvious example but not the only one. Klaassen captained Ajax for two seasons before leaving after the Europa League final defeat by United. Keane did not wear the armband but brought authority to Burnley’s defence. Morgan Schneiderlin, signed in January for £24m, is another dominant voice in the dressing room that has an established pecking order of three captains in Phil Jagielka, Gareth Barry and Baines.

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Koeman’s hope is that the winning mentality of Rooney and others will rub off on the young talent he regularly deployed last season, and who now find the competition for a starting role fiercer than ever. Tom Davies emerged as a genuine midfield talent and will hopefully continue to have the opportunity to develop. Kieran Dowell, a regular in England’s Under-20 World Cup victory but without one senior start under Koeman, has impressed in pre-season but looks set to join Nottingham Forest on loan. His England team-mate Jonjoe Kenny should be in contention for a right-back role with Séamus Coleman recovering from a double leg fracture but he was strangely overlooked as Koeman opted for the new signing Cuco Martina in the Europa League qualifier. But there is a healthy mix of age and experience.

Everton’s rebuilding efforts have not been confined to their first team. Work is progressing on the design and finances for a new stadium at Bramley Moore dock – with details of both expected to be revealed in the coming months – and there has been significant spending at youth team level.

David Unsworth’s under-23s won the Premier League 2 title last season and together with their head of recruitment, Jamie Hoyland, that squad has been replenished with Lewis Gibson, Josh Bowler, the French striker Boris Mathis and the Holland Under-18 defender Nathangelo Markelo.

Gibson and Bowler, respectively a 17-year-old defender signed from Newcastle United and an 18-year-old winger lured from Queens Park Rangers, will cost £10m in total should they fulfil their potential and activate the add-ons in their transfers. It is not only at the top of the Premier League where money has spiralled beyond all reason.

The success of Everton’s summer, however, will be measured within the tight confines of the Premier League’s leading pack. “Everybody knows that there was one really big reason for me to sign one year ago for Everton,” Koeman said. “It was all about this project and I think the club is showing that ambition that everybody likes to have and they are really great, exciting times for Everton Football Club.”