The Toffees failed to win at home until their seventh outing at Goodison Park - a last-ditch 1-0 victory over Fulham.

David Moyes' men rallied to ensure a second successive fifth-place finish but Jagielka is expecting the club to gain some early momentum this time around.

"You look at the newly-promoted teams and we're playing Burnley and Wolves quite early on," he said.

"The fixtures have been quite kind again this time but there are no easy games in the Premier League."

The former Sheffield United man will definitely miss the first two months of the season due to his rehabilitation from knee surgery.

The England centre-back ruptured his anterior cruciate ligament in Everton's 2-1 defeat to Manchester City in late April and will find out a more exact prognosis when he visits the surgeon next month.

"As soon as I got my injury I was told six months," Jagielka said. "We've not put a time frame on it now but if you look back then six months takes you to October/November time when the games come thick and fast - your Liverpools, Manchester Uniteds, the Chelseas. It would be fantastic to be back for them but I've just got to get my knee right and take it from there.

"Everything's going well but we've got to go and see the surgeon in a few weeks and he'll give it a good test and see where we are.

"Hopefully he'll not so much set a date but give me a timescale of when I'll be doing things. I just want to get the time out of the way as quickly as possible and get back playing football."