Frank Lampard's time as Everton manager is at an end.
The writing was on the wall as the Blues went down 2-0 at West Ham United on Saturday, a seventh defeat in the last 10 Premier League matches that saw them, briefly, slump to the foot of the table before Southampton were beaten at home by Aston Villa.
While the former Chelsea boss managed to helm Everton's push to safety last season, this term has seen the off-field problems play a major role in the on-field ones. And with the club facing a battle to retain the top flight status that they have held in English football since 1954, the decision was taken following the loss against the Hammers to end Lampard's tenure at Goodison Park.
In straight footballing terms, Lampard's exit is not unsurprising given the abysmal run of results, but to take a broader look at why the club has failed has seen much of the ire directed towards owner Farhad Moshiri, chairman Bill Kenwright and CEO Denise Barrett-Baxendale, all of whom were present in the stands at the London Stadium on Saturday afternoon as Jarrod Bowen's brace condemned Lampard's men to another bruising defeat.
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Lampard replaced the unpopular Rafael Benitez in January of last year, the former England midfielder the seventh manager to work under Moshiri since he took the club over in 2016. Roberto Martinez, Ronald Koeman, Marco Silva, Sam Allardyce, Carlo Ancelotti, Benitez and now Lampard have all exited under the reign of Moshiri, with all but Ancelotti, who departed for Real Madrid, sacked for poor performance.
Recent months have seen Everton fans focus much more on making change at the top than in the dugout in a bid to stop the rot that has seemingly set in at a time when the club should really be in a position to look forward to the future with positivity given the construction of a new stadium at Bramley-Moore Dock. But with the club mired in turmoil on and off the field, the hope that the new stadium had given at one point has turned into understandable anxiety at what the future holds given the club are flirting so dangerously with relegation, something that would be an enormous financial hit for the club to take, especially on the back of three consecutive years of financial losses amounting to some £372m.
Moshiri has been accused of having too much say in footballing matters in the past, and it is the heavy early spend to try and bridge the gap with the so-called 'big six' without having the revenues to back it up and failing to land lucrative spots in the Champions League that has led to the financial issues where the club have to be continually mindful of not breaching the Premier League's profit and sustainability rules.
There has been wasted money in terms of players that have arrived during the Moshiri years, but it is also a case of considerable funds that have had to be spent in terminating the contracts of managers, six of whom required significant severance pay.
Lampard had 18 months left on his deal at Goodison Park. At Chelsea he was on a deal worth around £75,000 per week. Using a slightly lower estimate of around £65,000 per week, over a remaining 18 months that would equate to around £4.7m in lost earnings, and that is likely low-balling where the deal was by some way. Managerial severance pay isn't as simple in all cases as simply paying up the remainder of the contract and it is possible that certain clauses were included in the contract that Lampard signed to terminate the role at an agreed price or percentage. Either way it will be a cost that runs well into the millions for Everton.
In the case of Benitez the Spaniard was understood to be earning around £7m per season at Everton, and paying off two-and-a-half years of that deal could have cost as much as £17.5m, but a conservative estimate would place it at around £14m. Lampard's sacking means that both he and Benitez have been hired and fired before the contract that Ancelotti signed with Everton in December 2019 has even ran the course that was planned.
Ancelotti was headhunted by Real Madrid to spearhead their bid to return to European football's summit. While Everton had attempted to keep Ancelotti, who had signed a deal worth around £11m per season at Goodison Park, they reportedly received a sum less than £5m from the Spanish giants. The precise amount of compensation received for Ancelotti and the sum to part ways with Benitez will be accounted for in the 2021/22 financial statements from the club which are yet to be published.
When Silva took over the reins from Allardyce in May 2018 there was a £4m compensation sum that Everton had to meet. In the 2019/20 financial accounts there was a sum of £6.6m included in relation to the amounts payable due to the changes made in coaching staff after Silva and his backroom team were fired in December of 2019.
Allardyce left with 18 months remaining in May 2018, exiting in the same financial year as Ronald Koeman, who himself was sacked 16 months into a three-year deal worth £6m per season. The expenses pertaining to the change in change in staff, twice, during that period came out at £14.4m.
Add into those figures that of the £10m that it eventually cost to sack Martinez, who was not a Moshiri hire and was already in situ at Everton when the club was taken over, then the figures spent on chopping and changing those in the dugout at Everton since Moshiri arrived on Merseyside runs close to £50m. The price of repeated failure.
Moshiri claimed in his rather impromptu talkSPORT interview earlier this month that the change in managers had been driven by the supporters.
"I put my money where my mouth is and that is the most an owner can do and I have done that," he said. "Some of the decisions we have taken is together with the fans, right? All the managers who have left have been driven by the fans, not me initially.
"I think you have got to stay with the manager to get the systems going, the players he brought in. I have a lot of faith in Frank that he will get it right."
Now it is another cheque to write and another manager to find to turn around another mess. This particular mess will take more cleaning up than the rest, and it is one that the club and owner can ill afford to get wrong.
Since the likes of Brentford hired Thomas Frank and Arsenal hired former Everton midfielder Mikel Arteta, the Toffees have burned through Silva, Ancelotti, Benitez and now Lampard. They are stuck in the quandary of needing someone with experience who can deliver the results they need in the short term with the absolute requirement for someone who can lead a revolution in terms of how the football side of the business operates, where there is clear plan long term. But for whoever comes in it they, like Lampard, will likely find that the challenge to achieve that kind of utopia is greater than it may first appear.
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