Talk about the seven-year itch…
Today is the anniversary of Everton announcing in 2016 that Farhad Moshiri was to be a new major shareholder at the club, bringing the promise of new investment. The billionaire was true to his word on that score but despite record-breaking levels of spending on players, the team have somehow gone backwards in a big way.
They currently find themselves back in the drop zone and haunted by the spectre of what would be the club’s first relegation in 72 years, less than 12 months on from coming disgustingly close to going down with what was the joint lowest equivalent points total in their history in the 2021/22 season. That near miss prompted the ECHO to proclaim in a front page splash: “We love you Everton – just don’t put us through this again,” adding that while the Blues had secured Premier League survival on one of the most memorable nights in Goodison’s long history (with a dramatic 3-2 comeback win over Crystal Palace), it shouldn’t have ever come to this.
Given that few clubs in football history had spent so much to become so bad, Moshiri issued the first of a clutch of subsequent open letters to the fanbase the following month, admitting that “mistakes have been made and for that I want to apologise to all of you” and “we have not always spent significant amounts of money wisely.” He added: “You did not deserve the frustration and fear that the season brought”, yet here we are… again.
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While Frank Lampard was able to bring together a fractured fanbase, many of whom felt the heart of their club had been ripped out with Moshiri’s hiring of former Liverpool boss Rafael Benitez, arguably the most-controversial managerial appointment in the history of the most-passionate city in English football and those same supporters went the extra mile to help drag Everton’s under-achieving players to survival, lamentably it became increasingly clear this term that the Blues were going down under his stewardship. Sean Dyche became the eighth incumbent of the Goodison Park hot seat on January 30 and fourth in the last 20 months alone and is now tasked with keeping up a team averaging just 0.71 goals per game (currently less than Huddersfield Town’s 0.74 in 2017/18, the lowest ever scoring ratio in 30 seasons of the Premier League among teams that avoided the drop).
For all the on-the-field chaos though – we must remember that Everton were 10th in the Premier League when Moshiri first arrived and many Blues were disappointed with that at the time – perhaps the biggest issue to fix right now with significant sections of the fanbase is one of trust in the leadership. Following a sit-in protest after the Southampton home game, there have been pre-match rally marches in the streets outside the stadium before each of the subsequent three matches at Goodison Park against both the owner and board of directors, the latest of which was headed by the younger generation, carrying a banner proclaiming: “If you tolerate this, your children will be next.”
Moshiri himself hasn’t attended an Everton home game since the 5-2 capitulation against Watford back on October 23, 2021 but the board, including chairman Bill Kenwright, who were previously regulars and stayed away against Southampton on what the club say was safety advice, have not been back to Goodison Park since despite turning up en masse at West Ham United (along with the owner for his first and last game of Lampard’s tenure) and across Stanley Park for the Merseyside Derby at Anfield. Throughout all of this time of strife, Everton responded to Fan Advisory Board questions while Moshiri sat down at length to be interviewed by Jazz Bal, the FAB chair.
It was in that aforementioned video that the owner insisted that if Everton needed a striker, they’d get one but despite the team’s desperate requirement for additional firepower being painfully obvious, director of football Kevin Thelwell supposedly spending months on identifying potential targets and Anthony Gordon, the team’s joint top scorer in the Premier League being sold to Newcastle United for £45million, the Blues were the only club involved in the battle against relegation not to strengthen their squad during the January transfer window. Like he remarked in his latest talkSPORT chat with old pal Jim White, Moshiri has put his money where his mouth is, but while few dispute his good intentions or personal generosity, the downward spiral continues with that failure to bring in fresh attacking options inexplicable.
For all the footballing failures on his watch, the Monaco-based businessman has turned Everton’s new stadium dream into a reality with their magnificent-looking future home now emerging before our eyes at Bramley-Moore Dock. Although the skeleton of the ground is already taking shape and enhancing Liverpool’s world-famous waterfront skyline, we’re still awaiting to hear on the details of financing that Moshiri told the FAB: “We are very close to.”
A modern 52,888 capacity successor to ‘The Grand Old Lady’ should be the launch pad to a brighter tomorrow for this proud and passionate club who have been among the game’s elite since the very start but while this is Everton’s 120th season in the English top flight – 11 more than nearest challengers Aston Villa who defeated them 2-0 on Saturday – that ultimately counts for nothing if they’re not in the Premier League when they’re scheduled to make their big move in the 2024/25 season.
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