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Now I believe Roberto Martinez totally when he guaranteed that Everton's squad on February 1 will be stronger than it was on December 31.

However I am still unsure about his decision to let Nikica Jelavic go before he has brought in another striker.

I understand that Martinez is doing the decent thing by Jelavic in allowing him to leave because he wants to play more regularly ahead of the World Cup.

But the January transfer window is notoriously difficult, with seemingly nailed-on deals falling through at the last moment, that I would rather have seen Jelavic's replacement arrive before he left.

Martinez clearly thinks it is not that big an issue and believes Aiden McGeady is part of the answer.

The Blues boss was prepared to wait until the summer to sign McGeady when he would have been a free agent.

But Hull's offer of £6.5million for Jelavic, with another £1million if they stay up, persuaded him to pay Spartak Moscow £2million now to sign McGeady.

Although McGeady is not a striker, Martinez feels the Republic of Ireland winger can release Kevin Mirallas and Steven Naismith from the flanks to play up front.

(Image: PA)

The only problem with that theory is that McGeady has not kicked a ball for several weeks and looked to be carrying a wee bit of timber when he was introduced to the Everton fans at Goodison on Saturday.

It could take at least a couple of weeks to build up his match fitness and in the meantime Everton have no-one to cover for Romelu Lukaku.

Martinez believes Arouna Kone could be back in action sooner than most people think, but he is still light up top in the interim.

The Spaniard is looking at Standard Liege's Michy Batshuayi and the Belgian side are insisting he pays the striker's £7million release clause in full.

That could complicate that deal, although Everton do have £7million - and more - in the bank from Marouane Fellaini's move to Manchester United in September.

With Everton in the hunt for a Champions League place, it all looks to me to be an unnecessary gamble by Martinez.

He could have let Jelavic sit for another week or 10 days until he did the business he wanted and Hull, West Ham and QPR were not going to lose interest in the Croatian.

We will see what happens, but it would be a sickener for Evertonians if they missed out on the top four because Lukaku got injured and they could not replace his goals.