Gylfi Sigurdsson completes Everton’s master plan. Did they get any better?

If the transfer window is its own competition, as seems to be the case these days, then Everton will be strolling away with the prize for effort. Six members of last season’s first-team squad have departed, and eight replacements have arrived so far, along with a sprinkling of youngsters moving in both directions. And they’re not done yet: Ronald Koeman wants a striker to replace Romelu Lukaku, and Ross Barkley wants to go somewhere. Anywhere.

The eventual monetary outlay may not amount to anything too remarkable by today’s standards. £40m for Gylfi Sigurdsson has raised eyebrows in even this most eyebrow-raising of summers, but the fees received for Lukaku and (in theory) Barkley will offset most of those paid out. As for the wage bill, while nobody expects Wayne Rooney to play for free, the departures will have something to offset the arrivals.

But in terms of personnel, it amounts to a profound transformation. Of the 11 players who started Everton’s first league game in 2016-17, just three — Idrissa Gueye, Leighton Baines, and Phil Jagielka — started against Stoke last weekend. Some teams have used the transfer window to tweak and refine their squads, others to add depth. Everton, over last January and this summer, have basically rebuilt themselves from the ground up.

The question is does it amount to a profound improvement? Taken on their own terms, it’s easy to look at the names Everton have brought in and wonder if, like Alice and the Red Queen, they’ve been doing an awful lot of running just to stand still. Jordan Pickford should be a marked improvement in goal, and Michael Keane, though he’ll be playing alongside an aged Jagielka and an ageing Ashley Williams, is coming off an excellent season for Burnley.

But there’s a reason Manchester United were happy to let Rooney leave on a free, one that had nothing to do with sentiment and everything to do with him not being worth a place in a Champions League-chasing squad. Sandro Ramírez comes with the question of youth, Davy Klaassen with that of the Eredivisie. And Sigurdsson has an impishly delightful aspect, takes excellent set pieces, and occasionally does something else magical. That’s good. Is that enough?

More specifically, is it enough for Everton in the context of the Premier League. They finished last season in a strange mezzanine between the big galumphing beasts of the top six and everybody else. They finished 15 points ahead of Southampton in eighth, yet eight points behind Manchester United in sixth — and that was a United side with at least one eye on the Europa League. Have Everton improved enough that six into four becomes an even more crowded seven?

In truth, that’s two separate questions, and Everton can only influence one of them. For their part, it’s hard to muster a particularly convincing yes. There’s depth to the squad, and versatility, and the opportunity for Ronaldo Koeman to play a few different formations. But if there’s a first XI in there that will trouble the top six, it isn’t immediately obvious.

Nor is it obvious who the solution to the striking problem will be — Everton don’t have Champions League football to offer, nor the reputation and deep pockets that helped Manchester United last summer, or Arsenal this year. Olivier Giroud appears to have decided that the bench at Arsenal is preferable to the pitch at Goodison Park. And beyond the inexperienced Dominic Calvert-Lewin and Ademola Lookman, and the seriously crocked Yannick Bolasie, there’s a marked lack of pace in their attack.

Of course, if Davy Klaasen establishes himself; and if Rooney manages to become an inspirational and productive figure; and if Sigurdsson makes the most of himself; and if Tom Davies and Calvert-Lewin kick on; and if Pickford copes with having less to do … well, all the questions could turn out to have exciting answers. As we saw at Southampton, Koeman is well able to organize teams into more than the sum of their parts.

But even if Everton do kick on, it may not be enough, because the second question concerns everybody above them. An improved finish will likely require not just improvement on Everton’s part but some kind of collapse on the part of one of last season’s top six; a top-four finish would need three. The former is possible, though maybe unlikely; the latter bleakly implausible. This could be a season of marked on-field improvement for little tangible reward. At least in the league.

An early test — or perhaps illustration — will come this Monday evening, when Everton visit Manchester City. Pep Guardiola’s team finished 17 points ahead of Everton last season, and have also been pummeling their squad into shape over the summer. Everton could well be better, yet that gap end up being wider. Such is the brutal rigor of the Premier League’s bloated top end: the teams just outside the elite can run run run, and spend spend spend, and still end up finishing in precisely the same place.