Your Everton morning headlines for Sunday, May 1.
Fireworks set off outside 'Chelsea hotel' as Everton prepare for vital clash
Fireworks were set off outside the Hilton hotel in the early hours of the morning in Liverpool where Chelsea were believed to be staying ahead of the vital clash with Everton in the Premier League at Goodison Park on Sunday afternoon.
Frank Lampard's side find themselves five points away from Leeds United in 17th place in the Premier League, but with two games in hand over the Yorkshire side. Everton need results and they need to find them fast after relegation rivals Burnley recorded their third win on the spin on Saturday.
READ MORE: Everton predicted line-up to take on Chelsea at Goodison Park
READ MORE: What Farhad Moshiri must now do as Everton unite to fight relegation
Everton were beaten 2-0 in the Merseyside derby last Sunday at Anfield, but home form is going to be key if they are to fight their way out of being relegated for the first time in the history of the club.
Read the full story HERE.
Stark warning to life outside the Premier League and the terrifying precipice Everton now hang over
Thirty years ago this weekend, Everton played Chelsea at Goodison Park and while it wasn’t one of the two clubs’ most-memorable meetings, in many ways it serves as a stark warning to the terrifying precipice the Blues currently find themselves hanging over. May 2, 1992 was the most-recent occasion that Everton contested three points in a non-Premier League match.
This was the final weekend in the old world of English top flight football that had existed since 1888 when Everton were one of a half dozen Lancashire clubs along with six teams from across the Midlands to become founder members of the Football League. It’s worth noting that none of the current so-called ‘Big Six’, who in 2021 were prepared to declare themselves the elite for perpetuity by joining a proposed breakaway European Super League were involved back then, indeed neither Chelsea or Liverpool had even been formed.
Enjoying the Football League’s biggest average attendances for the first decade of the competition and from 1892 playing at Goodison Park, England’s first purpose-built football ground, Everton could justifiably claim to have this country’s oldest major fanbase and a century after they crossed Stanley Park to their long-time home now dubbed ‘The Grand Old Lady’, they were still one of the game’s elite. Chairman Sir Philip Carter – whose name now adorns the Park End Stand at Goodison – had served as Football League President while at the helm of the Blues and was one of the major driving forces behind the formation of the Premier League at a time when Everton were one of a supposed ‘Big Five’ (without either Chelsea or Manchester City in an era before their respective major investments).
Read the full story HERE.