‘I've never had to do so many' – David Moyes fears Everton crisis has left him in uncharted managerial territory
Veteran Moyes is beginning his 28th campaign in the dugout, leading the Toffees into their new home at the Hill Dickinson Stadium.
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But the Scot says he needs 'five or six' players in the next few weeks - and that requirement was made clear as Everton were crushed 3-0 by Bournemouth at the MetLife Stadium on Saturday night.
Moyes, who confirmed he is looking to land Bayern Munich's Moroccan teenager Adam Aznou in a potential £8m move, said: 'We've signed three, so if you take that off, we're still in the need of maybe five or six players.
'That's what we have to try and do.
'In the past I probably have had to sign a lot of players, but I've never had to do so many in one window as we need now.'
Moyes suggested that he and the club's new Friedkin Group owners are paying for the chaos of the final years under Farhad Moshiri.
He said: 'We're sort of picking up a little bit of what we're at the end of now.
'We had a lot of people out of contracts, a lot of loan players, because of the financial situation.
'So we're having to sort of find a way around that and we're trying really, really hard behind the scenes to get things done.
'But you can see we're going to need it.
'We've got no centre-halves and we're really struggling.'
Everton and West Ham to fight it out for Douglas Luiz
Quizzed on Aznou, who has made just two Bundesliga appearances but did well on loan at Valladolid in Spain in the second half of last term, he added: 'We have made an offer. Whether it's accepted and all done is another thing.
'But he's a young player, someone who we see having a good future and potential, rather than ready.
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'If I'm being honest, we've tried to actually target more senior players if we can, players who are over the age of 25 with Premier League experience.
'That's not taking us away from the fact that we want to try and buy some young players as well.
'I'm hoping by the time we get to the end of the transfer window, we might have a balance of youth and experience.'
Moyes is without Jarrad Branthwaite, James Tarkowski and Michael Keane, leaving him perilously light in defence.
And he is already concerned about the impact of the African Cup of Nations that starts before Christmas and will strip him of Senegal duo Iliman Ndiaye and Idrissa Gana Gueye.
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He said: 'I always want my players to be selected for their country. I want them to represent their countries because I think that's the right thing to do.
'But when they get taken away in the mid-season, it becomes a problem.
'So we will miss them. And it's something which I know a lot of clubs are considering.
'If you're going to buy an African player who's in the AFCON, what's going to happen? Will clubs not sign African players because of the AFCON?'
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