This time last season, Everton fans were unsure on whether Roberto Martinez was the right man to lead the club after David Moyes. Fast forward 12 months and the question is Moyes who?

Martinez transformed the club within weeks, playing a much more attractive brand of football with the same players as well as getting the best out of players who seemed to be stagnating under the previous regime. 

Tim Howard, Leighton Baines and Seamus Coleman, to name a few, looked like new players last year and the emergence of John Stones and Ross Barkley in the first-team squad had the Merseyside club looking like a whole new team.

And with the permanent signing of last season’s loan stars Garreth Barry and Romelu Lukaku, Martinez has managed to build a whole new team just by implementing a new playing style.

The new deals given to Barkley and Stones means the younger players are around to stay and if they were to be sold, Bill Kenwright will demand hefty prices for the talented stars of tomorrow.

With Gerard Deulofeu going back to Barcelona, it seemed that Everton would be missing some of the attacking flair which brought them so much success last season.

But judging from the first touches of new signing Muhamed Besic, the Spanish winger will be soon forgotten on the terraces of Goodison Park.

The bar has been raised in Merseyside. Fans expect to see slick passing and for the team to be challenging for the top four on a consistant basis.

Under Moyes, they were constantly finishing in and around the top six and went on decent cup runs. 

Last season showed that they don’t need to spend drastically — Lukaku aside — to challenge the so-called “top four.”

But if anything, it will be harder to replicate their achievements last season with the sides around them all improving significantly and Manchester United looking like they are back to their best under Louis van Gaal.

Should Everton finish outside  Europe, will it mean the club have gone backwards?

Realistically the answer is no. Even the most die-hard Evertonian will admit that this season the club will do well to finish fifth again and a more realistic target would be to win the FA Cup or the Europa League. 

Being in Europe this season means the games will add up thick and fast and considering they don’t have the biggest squad, it is imperative that Martinez doesn’t take his eye off the bigger picture. The Premier League.

They start off at home to Leicester but then welcome Arsenal and Chelsea to Goodison Park. Not the greatest of starts but they are usually strong at home against the bigger sides in the league. 

Away from Goodison Park is where they struggle and at the end of September they travel across the park to take on Liverpool in the first merseyside derby of the season.

In this fixture last season, they were comfortably beaten 4-0, conceding three goals before half time, and will want to get revenge this time around.

They did manage to beat United at Old Trafford for the first time in 21 years so they know how to do it. It remains to be seen whether they can do it on a more consistent basis.

With a month left of the transfer window, Martinez will want to keep the rest of his squad as well as adding a few more faces. 

James McCarthy is in line for a new contract with reports that Manchester United are sniffing around while Bryan Oviedo and Arouna Kone are on the way back from injury.

The foundations are in place for this to be the greatest Premier League season for Everton and under Martinez, there is a real possibility he will deliver.