Soon there will be talk laced with enthusiasm and expectation but first comes a dollop of realism – which Andros Townsend delivers with a wry smile.
Everton have made a habit of spending big in the last five years, with Farhad Moshiri – the club’s whimsical major shareholder sanctioning buys that have cost in the region of £500million – but this summer, to date, there has been parsimony.
Rafa Benitez has scuffled around looking for deals and Townsend knows he was plucked from the value end of the market. He was a free agent, training on his own, when Everton’s new manager – with whom he had worked at Newcastle in 2016 – picked up the phone.