The tragedy of when the Titanic sank was that a crew member had spotted the iceberg the ship was careering towards but it was too late to prevent disaster. The same notion applies to Everton’s current situation as the cataclysmic course they are set upon also leads down and in their case out of the top flight of English football for a first relegation in 72 years.
Last season, despite posting the joint lowest equivalent points total in the club’s 134-year Football League and Premier League history, the Blues narrowly avoided the drop, only staying up with a dramatic 3-2 comeback win over Crystal Palace in their final home game. The ECHO’s front page proclaimed: “We love you Everton – just don’t put us through this again!” and added: “Toffees secure Premier League survival on one of the most memorable nights in Goodison’s long history… but it shouldn’t have come to this.”
Yet here we are, at the halfway point of the very next season and Frank Lampard’s side have the fewest points of any Everton team midway through a Premier League campaign - a pathetic 15, which is the lowest in the division along with basement club Southampton, who have now caught them up, and their next opponents West Ham United, whom the Blues sit between in the drop zone. Whereas the general feeling in 2021/22 was that an under-achieving squad had lost its way and going down would still have been something of a shock, nobody at Goodison Park can pretend there hasn’t been forewarning this time around.
ANALYSIS: Blame game points to two targets as damning signal sent by Frank Lampard
VERDICT: Everton crisis hits new low as four nightmare themes haunt Frank Lampard
In the 23 matches that Everton have played since Lampard and the fans celebrated staying up after beating Palace, the corresponding fixture this season is the only other occasion on which they have scored three goals. After that, the 2-1 win at Southampton on October 1 was the only other time they have scored more than one goal in a game.
Following the home defeat to the Saints, Lampard himself acknowledged that such a paltry scoring return (his side have netted just 15 times in the Premier League this season) is not sustainable for a team to expect to stay up. The Blues are understood to have made it their mission to bring in two additional attacking players in the January transfer window but almost halfway into the month, no new signings have arrived with the club’s incumbent main strikers Dominic Calvert-Lewin and Neal Maupay both stuck on just one goal apiece for the campaign.
Nil Satis Nisi Optimum? As someone who obtained an A in GCSE Latin and is well-known as being one of football’s most-intelligent men, Lampard must be well-aware that it’s anything but. Everton’s manager continues to speak about how he came into the role with the club fighting against relegation and in his pre-match press conference ahead of the Southampton game he made a point of saying how he envisaged this season would be more of the same given the parameters he was having to work within.
However, his points per game average of 1.11 last season has decreased to 0.79 this term and, despite having been in charge for one extra Premier League game compared to his tenure in the previous campaign, there have been half as many victories (three rather than six). While predecessor Rafael Benitez was arguably the most-controversial managerial appointment in the history of the most-passionate city in English football – and a choice that owner Farhad Moshiri went alone on – it was results, not past employment across Stanley Park that cost him his job ,with what chairman Bill Kenwright later describe as an “unacceptably disappointing” run of form.
Those same rules apply to every manager and just because he was the sixth appointment in as many years and the toxic cycle of hiring and firing cannot be healthy for the club long-term, Lampard is smart enough to realise that even though he was brought in under the universal blessing of all of Goodison Park’s power brokers, and even though Moshiri professed his faith in him over the past week in both his written reply to the Everton Fans’ Forum and then telephone interview with old pal Jim White on talkSPORT, he too will ultimately be judged on results.
In that respect there are now eerie parallels with the previous Blues boss who departed on this equivalent weekend a year ago after a 2-1 defeat to a bottom-of-the-table Norwich City side, who had lost their previous six Premier League games, left Benitez with one win from his last 13 matches in the competition, a run that included nine defeats. Lampard has also just lost 2-1 to a Southampton team propping up the division who had been beaten in their previous half dozen Premier League matches, leaving him with one win in 11 games, which extends to 13 in all competitions, including 10 defeats.
The nature of the opponents who have inflicted these beatings is also deeply concerning as Everton have lost four consecutive home matches for the first time since 1958, a time when they didn’t even have a manager but former Loughborough University PT lecturer Ian Buchan in charge as ‘Chief Coach’. To paraphrase Oscar Wilde, who never had to put up with such dross on a wet and windy winter’s day in Walton, when it comes the importance of being earnest (about Everton’s need to remain in the top flight): “To lose one game at home to a bottom of the table side may be regarded as a misfortune, to lose both looks like carelessness.”
The Blues went ahead against both Wolverhampton Wanderers and Southampton but somehow transpired to be beaten in both fixtures. Their Goodison Park losing run started against a Leicester City side that were in the bottom three and in between their brace of batterings at Bournemouth (7-1 on aggregate after loyal but long-suffering fans travelled over a thousand miles in the space of four days) are the only matches that the Cherries haven’t been beaten themselves in over their last 12 outings.
No wonder the beleaguered fanbase are up in arms, the club has clearly not been run anywhere near as well as it should be for things to be going so badly wrong on the pitch, but after a pre-match coach welcome for the Everton team from the supporters was followed by a planned sit-in protest after the final whistle – which both Moshiri, who has admitted to mistakes in recruitment, and Lampard had described as their “right” – just what is the endgame in all this? Banners with the surnames of all current Blues board members – who had been advised not to attend on safety grounds – were displayed at Goodison on Saturday, proclaiming: “Kenwright out; Baxendale out; Ingles out; Sharp out” along with a “Moshiri out” too.
Board members can come and go, and have already done so during the current regime but after pumping over half a billion pounds of his own money into Everton and turning the new stadium into a reality, Moshiri won’t just give the club away. The understandable malcontents are now letting him know that even though, as he also stated on Thursday, “I put my money where my mouth is and that is the most that an owner can do and I’ve done that,” his stewardship is no longer seen in the eyes of many as being in the Blues’ best interests.
This may well be so and the fact that the Monaco-based owner hasn’t attended a match in over 14 months suggests that his enthusiasm for the project could be waning despite professing his continued commitment in statements. But from a practical point of view, who would take his place?
When Peter Johnson found himself no longer welcome at Goodison, Bill Kenwright was waiting in the wings, but over the 23 years since, the finances required to own Premier League clubs have skyrocketed and local lads made good just don’t cut it anymore. We all know what kind of people do invest in Premier League clubs these days – namely US tycoons or if you’re really fortunate/prepared to abandon all your principles, a petrodollar-fuelled sportswashing group. But after Manchester City and Newcastle United won the lottery in that respect, Everton appear to have missed the boat there and there doesn’t appear to be a queue of suitable buyers who Moshiri might strike a deal with.
At a time when there is great disharmony at the Blues, though, surely the one thing we can all agree upon is that all this is grossly unfair on the fans. Goodison Park was the first purpose-built football ground in England, but while Evertonians should be looking forward to the once-in-a-lifetime event of moving to an iconic new 52,888 capacity stadium on the banks of the Mersey, the final years at ‘The Grand Old Lady’ are being ruined by the misery and chaos engulfing the club with the only real certainty among it all appearing to be the increasing prospect of a future outside the Premier League unless big changes are made.
READ NEXT
- Everton protests unfold inside and outside ground as Yerry Mina faces up to fans
Southampton boss Nathan Jones makes blunt Everton tactics and Goodison Park atmosphere claims
Frank Lampard sends message to Everton fans after insisting he's still right man for job
Everton player ratings as Amadou Onana good but quality badly lacking vs Southampton
Frank Lampard shuts down old Sean Dyche Everton claim after Southampton defeat
