Sam Allardyce has revealed that Everton are set to find out whether their attempts to sign £25 million striker Cenk Tosun have been successful or not within the next 24 hours.

The Blues' defeat at home to Manchester United once again laid bare the same old problems that have plagued Everton under Allardyce's charge, with a lack of creativity and attacking threat prevalent.

They didn't produce a single shot on target at Goodison Park as they suffered a second successive Premier League defeat and Allardyce once again spoke of the need for fresh faces.

He declared that the Merseyside outfit simply do not have the options available up top to be able to win games any other way than relying on being defensively solid - with Tosun's potential arrival thought to help change that.

The 26-year-old has scored 14 goals this season, four in the Champions League, for reigning Turkish champions Besiktas and is viewed as the man to revive a struggling Everton attack which has suffered since Romelu Lukaku's summer departure.

No guarantees that Tosun can solve attacking issues

Speaking in the aftermath of their loss to the Red Devils, the Everton boss said: "We've done all we can. I presume that we'll know within the next 24 hours if we're successful or not.

"Obviously we need a bigger goalscoring threat than we've got at the moment and that may help us in many ways to achieve more results, and certainly will if whoever we get scores goals.

"I can't guarantee whoever we get in is going to score goals straight away, I just hope he does when we do."

Asked whether there is an issue with the fee Everton have offered for Tosun, he added: "Not that I know of. Our deal is in, our deal is there and it's up to them whether they accept it or not."

"We're working with what we've got for the moment"

Despite such a poor performance, which was met by boos in some quarters at Goodison, Allardyce picked up on the positive display of James McCarthy off the bench.

Calling the Ireland international Everton's "shining light", Allardyce admitted that the midfielder is not yet at full speed - nor is winger Yannick Bolasie.

"There's still some doubt in James' mind because of the length of injuries and the constant injuries occurring in relatively the same place, so we are delicately [treating him], like Yannick," he continued.

"We won't see the best of Bolasie for eight or nine games but we've got to put him on otherwise we'll never get him into the swing of it again. It's not an ideal situation for us to be in.

"James McCarthy has been out the best part of 18 months to two years, which is actually longer than Yannick although not with one serious injury but a number of little injuries.

"We'll try and overcome that problem. If we can put Seamus Coleman back in that and Bainesy [Leighton Baines] back in that, we'll get a stronger team I think. If we can find something in January who scores goals, we'll be better and get better.

"At the moment these lads that we're working with are what we've got to try to continue to improve. At the moment it's all about recovery and trying to get a team out for Liverpool."