Silva talks about how many Everton signings he would like this summer

While on one hand Everton Director of Football Marcel Brands is looking to reduce the size of the bloated squad from 38 to about 25-30, manager Marco Silva has seen enough in the preseason to determine how many new additions he would like before the transfer window closes in just a matter of weeks.

Speaking to the Echo, Silva said -

“First the most important thing is not the number. For us to sign players we must be sure about his quality because this is most important for me.

“For us to sign players we must be sure they can improve our squad. In some positions we are clearly looking to improve to get more competitive in our squad, because we have to.

“Of course, if you are talking to me it is not the most important thing to talk about what are the positions because I need to be fair to our players but I can tell you four or five, or maybe one more, six, players, we have to sign.”

While Silva declined to name the positions he had in mind, he certainly seems convinced we need more quality in at least three or four different areas.

“If you sign three or four very, very good players then we are going to improve and it will be good for us and afterwards we can see, because we don’t have to do everything now.

“We have other markets, this is the first season we arrive in the club.

“Of course, I don’t want to change everything straight away and sign 10 players, it doesn’t make sense in this moment. We need to be sure about things and the players to come in need to improve us.”

Photo by Carlos Rodrigues/Getty Images

As Everton learned last summer, mass signings was not the way to go and we can expect more prudence in this transfer window - so much so that we haven’t signed a player yet.

“If you can do everything now it is better because, normally, January is not the best market to attack.

“If you go in January it is because we maybe didn’t do everything well in the summer or if you have any injury or someone leaves the club.

“If you have to do something in the January market it’s because you didn’t do everything you had to do in the summer but if you can during the next two-and-a-half weeks (it is better). We don’t have a big time for us, we don’t have a lot of time to do it, but we have to do.”