🔵 Royal Blue: I was at every Everton friendly - these are my thoughts

And there we have it. That’s a wrap. Four weeks after Everton’s pre-season kicked off on the Firth of Tay, on Saturday it ended on the banks of the Mersey with a draw with Lille.

It has been some month.

Dundee. Bolton. Stoke. Hamburg. Stuttgart. Edinburgh. Liverpool.

Like the players, I have covered some miles. Like the hardy supporters who have been following the Blues, I have not done it in luxury. I’m feeling the toll, to be honest, but what on earth have I to complain about? This is, of course, a privilege.

It is also my job and, as the only journalist to have been to every Everton friendly - a feat so very nearly ruined by a breakdown on the way to Murrayfield - now is the time for me to make sense of what I have seen and heard for you.

These thoughts on where Everton stand on the eve of the new season come to you via the press boxes and mixed zones of stadia from Dens Park to Hill Dickinson, via a plush resort in the Black Forest and countless airport breakfasts and service station lunches.

They are built on conversations with Tyrique George (twice), Merlin Rohl, James Tarkowski, Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall, Hayden Hackney, Jarrad Branthwaite and Thierno Barry.

And they follow chats with all sorts of people occupying all sorts of places in the world of football - though not David Moyes, although his summer silence was finally broken last night.

So, this is how I will break things down:

• Winners of the summer

• Has the squad improved *enough*?

• What worries me

• What will happen in the final weeks of the window

• What Moyes and co should be aiming for this season

• Do the Friedkins have a trick up their sleeve?

Buckle up…