I'm actually amazed we finished in a European position with just one real striker in the entire squad.
:: Sorry but I can't help myself getting carried away with my thoughts, but I am new and need to share this ::
I unfortunately cannot imagine Ronald Koeman will be given £100 million to spend pre-sales, so my opinion is he will realise selling Romelu Lukaku and Ross Barkley for big fees plus whatever we can recoup for Oumar Niasse, Gerard Deulofeu, Phil Jagielka, one of Maarten Stekelenburg or Joel Robles, Aaron Lennon, Aiden McGeady and James McCarthy is the best move to revamp this squad. Is it unrealistic to think we could generate about £150 million total for all those players above?
Lukaku £70 million, Barkley £30 million, Niasse £5 million, Deulofeu £10 million, Jagielka £3 million, Stekelenburg £3 million, Lennon £3 million, McGeady £5 million and McCarthy £20 million give or take a few million on each player. We'd only realistically miss two of those players from the squad (Niasse, Deulofeu, Stekelenburg, Lennon, McGeady, McCarthy not contributed this season or contributed very very little), so that is some war chest to get serious talent in.
£150 million could get a good goalkeeper (£20 million), top centre half (£25 million) to partner with Mori or Williams or Holgate, a goalscoring midfielder such as Sigurdsson (guess £35 million since they are in the Premier League next season after all) and a £30 million replacement for Lukaku and £5 million on Sandra from Malaga = £120 million or there abouts plus £30 million set aside for increase in wages.
I'd like to think Farhad Moshiri would do more than just give Koeman the proceeds from sales, say £200 million after sales to completely re-shape the squad and turn it into one big and capable enough to challenge on all fronts next season. Somehow can't see it, these good things don't happen to Everton. I think it's sell two key players for big fees and move on unwanted players to get in quality and quantity we need.
But if more money was available than just what we make on sales, we could get in all above-mentioned players plus a second top centre half and sell Mori or Williams (we'd have options still of the two new centre halves, Holgate and the one of Williams/Mori that isn't sold at centre back) plus some serious competition for Baines which I also see necessary. I want this to be the biggest summer in our history.
Starting eleven for next season...
New goalkeeper
Holgate until Coleman returns - New centre half - Mori or Williams or second new centre half - Baines
Gueye - Davies - Schneiderlin
Sigurdsson - Lukaku replacement - Mirallas or new attacking midfielder (Klaasen?) or Sandro
:: Apologies for the football manager style post, but surely this will be a summer with a massive turnover and lots of players brought in... ::