Are Everton good enough to challenge Mauricio Pochettino’s Tottenham Hotspur and Arsene Wenger’s Arsenal?
The former Everton star, though, seems to have changed his mind, suggesting that finishing sixth, seventh or eighth would be a good season for Ronald Koeman’s team.
“I think with the money they have spent and things like that, Lukaku’s a real loss, you don’t get somebody scoring 20 goals every season, that is a huge loss to a club that’s not had a lot of great goalscorers so if you take Lukaku out of it they’ll not score many,” the 51-year-old former England international goalkeeper told bwin.
“They’re not amongst the biggest scorers so I think that’s the important thing. If they can get the goals then I think their normal place in the league would be a fair return – sixth, seventh or eighth for example.
“With the signings at the start of the season I actually thought that they might be able to challenge Arsenal and Tottenham, but having not directly replaced Lukaku I think that will prove to be beyond them this season.”
Everton were quite busy in the summer transfer window and signed a number of players.
Among the players that the Merseyside outfit signed were forward Wayne Rooney from Manchester United, attacking midfielder Gylfi Sigurdsson from Everton and Jordan Pickford from Sunderland.
The Toffees, though, lost star striker Romelu Lukuku, who has scored five goals in five Premier League appearances for Manchester United so far this season.
Tottenham have one of the best squads in the Premier League, and it is going to be tough for Everton to compete with Spurs, given that the North London outfit will be aiming for the title.
Can Everton compete with Arsenal? Yes, they certainly can. The current Gunners’ squad is not great, and that was proved by the fact that they failed to finish in the top four of the Premier League last season.
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