Scoring a late, late equaliser with virtually the last kick of the game, almost the full nine minutes into stoppage time at Wolverhampton Wanderers, Everton made their point in their final away game of the season… or did they?
The blue pyrotechnics exploded, Sean Dyche’s players wheeled off in delight, loyal but long-suffering Evertonians who have (other than Southampton and Brighton) followed their team through thin and thinner on the road this term, roared with delight and those same Wolves fans who had taunted the visitors with chants of “Sign on” earlier in the day, now possessed faces like proverbial smacked backsides and were largely stunned into silence.
Given the nature of the way Everton snatched a share of the spoils at the death, this had to be seen as a moment of joy and celebration for a deeply-troubled football club but will it be enough?
Only time will tell.
If the Blues had been victorious at Molineux then they’d have taken a massive step towards securing Premier League safety and their fate would have remained in their hands, regardless of what Leeds United and Leicester City subsequently did. But the fact is they didn’t and in truth, despite yet another promising first half an hour – how many of those have we seen that ultimately came to nought – they never looked like winning (or even getting anything out of the contest after they fell behind). There had of course been that spectacular 5-1 demolition of a Brighton & Hove Albion side enjoying their best-ever season last time out but unfortunately such displays are the exception to the norm.
Having been bottom of the table on Boxing Day when they came to Goodison Park for Julen Lopetegui’s first Premier League game in charge, the Spaniard’s rescue mission had ensured that Wolves were already safe but even facing such an opponent, it was always going to be a tough ask to ‘expect’ an Everton side with just two away wins all season to record back-to-back successes on their travels. In an ideal world, the Blues go to the Black Country and pick up three points that put them on the brink of survival but in reality it was never going to be that neat/tidy/straightforward was it in this of all seasons?
Indeed, it has to be a point gained because for this Everton team – especially away from home – that’s a better than average return. Following the 3-0 home defeat to a Manchester City side now crowned champions for the third successive year, the Blues were condemned to the lowest equivalent points total in their entire history, unable to catch last season’s tally of 39 (the joint worst along with 2003/04 when curiously they weren’t even in a relegation scrap but got themselves safe by Easter and then collapsed).
Failing to beat Wolves ensures Everton now sink to new depths as regardless of whether they stay up or not, they will finish the season with fewer points than games played. Based on the three points for a win system in use since 1981, the Blues have never been this bad in the whole 135 years since they were founder members of the Football League back in 1888.
That very first season when Everton finished eighth out of the 12 clubs produced just 20 points from 22 games but when adjusted to three points for a win, that figure goes up to 29 points and based on a 38 game season, that’s a 51-point equivalent. The same goes for all the other seasons when the Blues finished with fewer points than games in the pre-three points for a win era, if those totals were converted – even on the two occasions that Everton have been relegated – they would average over a point per game.
The magnitude of this failure is stark then. Here is a football institution that has been operating, almost continuously save for four seasons in the old Second Division between 1930/31 and 1951/52 to 1953/54, in the top flight of the English game since the very start, before any of the current so-called ‘Big Six’ were involved and they’ve never performed so poorly.
This is a period that began with no cars in the UK and spans the invention of the aeroplane, television, two World Wars, man on the moon, the rise of the internet and of course the creation of the Premier League – in short, a society in which everyday life has been transformed to create the modern planet we now inhabit – but throughout all these revolutionary changes, Evertonians have never had to put up with a season in which their team performed as poorly as this. Given the levels they’ve been operating at, none of Everton, Leeds United or Leicester City could credibly say that they don’t deserve to go down irrespective of the final outcome.
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As much as it is painful for those involved, relegation is an integral part of the organic structure of the football pyramid, based on sporting merit. Those are the same ideals that the Blues’ hierarchy spoke out to so vehemently protect in 2021 when they denounced the synthetic closed shop private members club of a proposed European Super League.
Goodison Park chiefs were roundly praised for their strong stance on that occasion when they released a statement to lambast what they called the “preposterous arrogance” of the owners of the other clubs who threatened to break away but now it’s themselves who are in the spotlight for allowing such an unnecessary debacle to unravel on their watch and those words could come back to haunt them.
Depending on where you are in the football food chain, relegation from the Premier League needn’t sound a death knell for your club and outfits of a certain size cut their cloth accordingly, bobbing up and down such as the likes of Norwich City, Watford and Dyche’s previous employers Burnley who have just returned at the first time of asking with the minimum of fuss.
Everton are very much a different kind of beast though and falling through the trapdoor for the first time since 1951 would be largely unprecedented. In terms of a high-profile casualty it would be the biggest since Manchester United went down back in 1974.
Of course nobody is immune from such failures and twice previously in the Premier League era the Blues themselves have found themselves having to fight for survival on the final day in both 1994 and 1998 but after riding their luck twice, they must hope it’s not a case of three strikes and you’re out.
It seems totally perverse that Everton find themselves in this position given the amount of money that Farhad Moshiri has pumped into the club though so when such huge figures have been invested under the current regime – one that has overseen eight managers and three directors of football since 2016 – the only conclusion is that those running the operation have to be held accountable. The timing of it all is wretched with beleaguered Blues not even able to look forward to their final days at Goodison Park and the once-in-a-lifetime event of moving to a magnificent new stadium on the Mersey waterfront.
In a week’s time we’ll know whether or not Everton, the club who have spent more seasons than any other in the top flight and the only founder members of both the Football League and Premier League to be ever-presents in the latter are still there. But even if they do survive with their paltry total, there cannot be allowed to be anything close to smugness, satisfaction or any kind of thoughts resembling vindication from within Goodison’s corridors of power.
What has been served up has been the absolute antithesis of ‘Nil Satis Nisi Optimum’ and unlike Everton’s survival prospects, that’s crystal clear to everyone in football and especially all those who have the Blues’ best interests at heart.
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