I think at this stage every fans forum is filled with optimism.

Thats the point of pre-season isn't it?

As it stands we have a chance of winning something. Every club does right now. So I don't have a problem with people saying we could get CL football. No harm in dreaming.

Personally I think anything less than another top 8 season would be unacceptable.

Our first 11 is quite good but the squad just isn't big enough to challenge the top 4.

God help us if Jelavic or Baines gets injured(or sold).

I think that as long as there is progress, that is, a better start to the season to improve our final position from last year, I will be happy.

A cup, dont care which one, but a cup. We wont get relagated, balls out for a cup. Dont rest your goalie for home league cup tie for example ! Wont even go there regards to the semi.

One of the problems for me, we have lads telling us pre - season we have a great chance of finishing top 4, a great chance of winning a trophy etc, but when we get to a point in the season when it looks like we are nowhere near either and someone comes on here criticising Moyes, these same lads are telling us we can't expect to finish 4th etc, because Moyes has no money.

6th and a Cup!

European football is a must for next season, I think 6th is realistic but it wouldn't bother me if we were to finish 8th with cup. Our squad without doubt isn't strong enough for a champions league place right now and while all the teams around us seem to be getting stronger I don't know how long we can realistically challenge for a place in Europe let alone the top 4.

I wouldn't care what place we finished (except relegation zone of course) if it also came along with an FA Cup triumph. Carling Cup does not excite me, though would be better than nothing

FA cup win, decent and consistent 'have a go' football, regardless of the opposition. I guess I would accept the mickey mouse cup as it guarantees Europe - we need to be in Europe, if only to increase the profile of the club and give the younger player experience of non English football. (Thursdays a boring if we're not involved...)

No more starting games without a striker nonsense.

Give me the above and we can finish anywhere from 5th - 15th for all I care about the league...

(If we start the season like we finished the last, then I would take more interest in the league...)

A trophy. I want a trophy.

I don't care about Europa. I would only care about Europa if we played a really big team like AC Milan. Playing FC Field on a Thursday night and playing at 3pm on a Sunday with a crap atmosphere for a £3M pot is pointless.

What's acceptable?

Read the motto !!!

Steve, thanks for that... I was just buying the goalie shirt for my 8-year-old lad and he asked me what 'the writing' meant? I explained. He though it was pretty cool! Make of that what you will.

A top half finish will do for me - as long as we don't play KITAHTNO until we get 40 points.

Some of the surrenders and hoofball were inexcusable last season.

A win away against the usual suspects would also be nice, we will be heading in the direction of 50 attempts by the end of this season.

Please Moyes - show us you are a tactical genius and ditch the 4-5-1 for every single game, mix it up a little.

Kevin – I assume your 50 attempts would exclude City and Spurs?

Hard to see progression when the top 4/5 are way out of our reach, unless we start the season like the steam train we usually end on. I'd be happy with a Europa finish, and it doesn't have to come from the league necessarily. I would love to see us end our League Cup drought and win the Carling Cup this season.

Kevin, did you actually watch the Euros? The 4-4-2 system is well and truly dead Spain pissed on it, and then had a little fandango dance on its grave.

The only team that try to play it is the England team which I find strange considering all the teams in the EPL play some type of 4-5-1 system.

I see Ibrahamovic has gone to PSG with Thiago Silva for £60m+. I would think Carroll could be off then?

Fair play Liverpool have made some shit signings.

Carroll, Henderson, Downing, Babel, Acqualani, Diouf, Diao, Cheyrou, Poulson. Even the frees have been shite: Kewell, Cole. The wages and transfer fees squandered....

Colin, Kevin asked to mix it up a bit to be fair. There is a place for 4-4-2, at home against QPR, Wigan Etc.. more attacking, but a bit of variation in formation shouldnt be out of the question.

Moyes played 4-6-0 way before Spain. :-)

Ian, when they signed Carroll, I thought he would be their Ferguson.. really I did. I hope they bin him off before he starts performing.

Ian, what charity did you donate that £20 to ?

Colin, have you ever seen a team play 4-3-3 ? or 4-1-3-2 ? or 3-4-3 ?

Dear oh dear !!

Not that concerned about league position, I want a continuation of the end of last season so I can enjoy our football and be proud to be an Evertonian.

Results, cup runs and league position will follow - no more cowardice and shame please Mr Moyes.

European place, Cup run, sweep the Shite.

After The Capitulation and the Semi we need a year where we don't lose to them. We need to own the enemy this year. Do that and finish in a European place and have a good Cup run (either FA or Mickey Mouse for me, not picky) and I'll be happy.

Qualifying for the Europa League on merit constitutes good enough in my opinion. This could be through league placing, reaching the FA Cup final or, imagine this, winning a cup.

Kevin - you name it mate. A bets a bet.

I assume the Moyes 10 year box set isn't the charity donation you were thinking of?

Europa placing with signs of improvement in quality and consistency of play as a minimum. The domestic cups can be won on a favourable draw as much as team quality so, unless we really have to earn progression, they are meaningless.

Likewise the matches against the RS...any team can have a bad match we have one against them screw it...its the performance against the bus-parking teams like the baggies and stoke that are more important to our season. We want to shut the gobshites up we finish ahead of them for two seasons on the bounce!.

Kev, yes I did and I've seen us play different formations too varying it throughout in a single game, meaning we have been mixing it up for quite a while now.

We don't strictly play 4-5-1 our shape is fluid and reactive, this talk of us being too static or that we should set up as 4-4-2 because it more attacking is nonsense.

Joking apart, some of the best football we've played was with the 4-6-0, I wonder if Arteta was on the phone to the Spanish Coach 'eh senior you'll never believe dees' we play with no strikers!

Pick up where we left off last season. Rest will take care of itself.

6th or 5th AND a cup. We ain't the best now but we are good enough for these targets. NSNO should at least translate onto effort when the team steps out on the field.

Dead wood cleared out, fresh blood brought in to make sure we start this season as we ended the last. To finish no lower than last year but with more points (showing more consistency throughout the year) and finishing above our dear neighbours once again (splitting the derby points with them would be enough to keep their jibes at bay).
Any silverware will do (referring to anything as 'mickey mouse' when we have won nothing for 17 years is a little picky, in my opinion).
Maybe I am just an old curmudgeon but I prefer rationality and realism over blind, jingoistic optimism any day of the week. Supporters have the right to highlight when things just aren't good enough at 'their' club (and our motto says it all), though matchday support of the team (vocally I mean) is important and needs to remain consistently positive. Airing your grievances on a site like this one is preferable to barracking the lads on the pitch. That is the tricky part, staying emotionally invested with (and financially rewarding) an institution you feel is letting you down - kudos to all who do.

Is 4th beyond us? Take away City & United, what are you left with? Arsenal? See Everton 1989: When you replace top drawer players with second rate one's you're heading in one direction only. Tottenham? Just replaced their best manager in years with a proven failure. Chelsea? Appointed footballs biggest bluff since Benitez. Newcastle? An exceptional one off season. Liverpool? A rapidly fading memory. There's the competition folks.........if only we had a manager with some balls. If good old Davey runs true to form we should be floundering around 12th to 13th come the Chrimbo works night out.

Which sides are better than us? Man U and Man city will finish above us, that's almost a given. Chelsea are the winners of the Champions League but the core of their squad is about finished. That makes them a question mark. Tottenham haven't gotten any better. After the second half of last season, we could be better than them. We are better than Liverpool. Probably not better than The Arse. Who knows what Newcastle are going to do.

Reasonably speaking, third is our highest possibility but are we really expecting to be better than all the aforementioned teams? I think all the teams except the Manc sides are in a steady decline but the question is, how fast are they declining and can we improve on last season or not? I would say top 6 is likely, top 7 or 8 is to be expected. For me, a cup run and European qualification would equal success.

And once again, formations don't attack, movement does. You can play 10-0-0 and as long as you find a way to move around in the attack, make the other side's shape break down, and play intelligent balls, you can play attractive football.

Personnel is a different subject. How many of each type of player should be playing? Should you have a more flair players, pacy players, physical players?

Defferent tactics can even be employed within the same formation. 4-5-1 can be used to Stoke the crap out of the other team or it can be used to control possession. It all depends on who is on the field.

6th to 8th is probably our realistiic finish again. United and City are out of our range. Arsenal have and will bring in more quality than we can. Chelsea have brought in Hazard with more to come. Spurs will be able to bring in better players than we can, so we will probably be in a scrap with the Redshite and Newcastle.We have a squad a season older with only a glass legged Scot in so far and highly likely to lose Baines. This is squad that will not make a jump into the Champions League places.

Hang on Gary, you can't have it both ways.

You want us to compete for 4th with Arsenal, Tottenham, Chelsea and that other lot across the park. Then talk about Benitez and Andre Villas-Boas being failures and then say if only we had a manager with some balls?

I think having better player rather than cast-offs would enable us to play more expansive football. To quote Keegan 'I'd just luv it' if Moyes was able to play his own game rather than reacting to the opposition.

Same again for me this coming season top 6, with a good cup run. If we can get a better quality of player or one of our kids comes good then you never know we could maybe get a cup or maybe 5th - money talks I'm afraid.

Finish at least in the top seven. Failing that, anywhere in the top six to nine with a cup thrown in.

Also, the word that keeps jumping out at me as I read the comments, CONSISTENCY. I would like us to play for a full season, allowing for the same type of blip that most teams have, but a full season none the less. Not half a season, not consistency born out of Neville breaking someone in half with a tackle in December, but a hit the ground running in the middle of August type consistency.

Staying up and getting a new owner would do me

A greater haul of points than last season and a cup final would be seen as progress to me!

Actually I'll go with Peter on that one!

Nothing is going to change at Goodison until a big investor comes in and that is pretty much it in a nutshell.

Everton have a hardworking bunch and a hardworking manager and the team will always be difficult to beat but the squad is flimsy compared to the ''top teams'' or should I say the ''money clubs''. We do have some quality in the starting eleven but not much in reserve as it appears to stand at the moment. However, some younger players are going to be a little more experienced and hopefully fitter than they were and that may be a bonus for the new season.

Only time will tell but it seems likely that very little will change and finishing at least fourth may only be a pipedream.

Looking around at players other clubs are bringing in its going to be very tough.

However we have something we have missed for at least the last 3 years and that is a goalscorer.

If Jelavic can stay fit all season I think we could do well. Top 4 seems impossible but I remember a plucky no-billionaire team who managed to gatecrash a few years back with nothing more than willpower and brimstone. Maybe we can try and do the same as them....

I tell you what is not acceptable:

1. Not having the balls to have a go at the shitehouses from across the park.
2. No shots on target in a home game. Don't care who the oppo is, but at home we have to play to win.

Other than this, my demands are limited. Compete in every match, always play to win at home and, twice a season, wind up the boys to rattle our hated neighbours. This will do me.

I would find it vey acceptable if Billy Liar and "Friends of Everton" were replaced with a more forward thinking board who know what NSNO means.

I think we can get 4th or 5th if we get off to a good start; if not, we will finish about 7th.

As for playing 4-4-2, it just does not work — why can't people see that?

If Hibbert is still the first choice RB then I'll be happy if we stave off relegation

We must try for the Premier Lague title, the FA Cup, and the Carling Cup — nothing else will do.

Amit's got a decent point of view. I agree with him but I'd also like a cup and top 8.