- 1 year ago
Everton's 10-point deduction has pundits tipping them for relegation and fans fearing the worst, but already this season Sean Dyche has the Toffees playing in a way that's made them resilient at the back, and dangerous in attack. The numbers, for now, suggest they'll be absolutely fine.
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00:00Everton have been docked 10 points, with potential lawsuits of up to £300m from relegated clubs
00:12and clubs around them to follow, the likes of Nottingham Forest, Burnley, Leeds United
00:17and Leicester City.
00:19Whether you think it's too harsh or not, it does paint a picture about the current state
00:24of affairs over on the blue half of Merseyside.
00:27So here's how Everton's downfall has truly taken place.
00:33When Farhad Moshiri strode into Goodison Park in 2016, he did so with one key ambition,
00:40to transform Everton's fortunes.
00:42Announced as the Toffees new investor at 4.46pm on Saturday February 27th, the British Iranian
00:48billionaire walked into a club that had gone 21 years without silverware and sat 12th in
00:53the Premier League table.
00:55For a club more used to qualifying for Europe, even finishing in the top four under David
00:59Moyes, that was a disappointment.
01:02Moshiri wasted little time in attempting to reawaken the perennial sleeping giant, pledging
01:06to give everything I have to re-establish the nine-time English champions back amongst
01:11the elite.
01:12He told fans,
01:13We don't want to be a museum.
01:15We need to be competitive and win.
01:17Over the course of the next seven and a half years, Moshiri did transform Everton's fortunes,
01:22but not in the way he envisaged.
01:24In each of the past two seasons, a 12th place finish would have been blessed relief.
01:29Instead, the Toffees became relegation candidates, jeopardising a top flight status that will
01:34soon extend to 70 years, all that while facing financial, fair play charges and the substantial
01:40costs of a new stadium, with Sky Sports pundit Jamie Carragher labelling them as
01:45Last month, Moshiri confirmed he'd finally agreed to sell Everton, but fan worries remain
01:52Amid concerns about the club's potential new owners, how did things go so wrong?
01:57This is how Everton were taken to the brink of despair.
02:01Moshiri's premiership in the blue half of Merseyside developed at breakneck speed in
02:05early 2018.
02:07Just 24 hours before buying Everton, he sold his 15% stake in Arsenal to long-term business
02:13partner Alisher Usmanov, as the pair's battle with Stan Kroenke for control of the Gunners
02:17continued to go nowhere fast.
02:20Boasting an estimated personal wealth of £1.3bn, the Moshiri buy-in resulted in Everton
02:25fans chanting,
02:26We're f***ing rich within days.
02:29They believed they'd finally found their ticket back to the elite after an 11th place
02:33finish in 2014-15 had left many worried they were slipping too far behind.
02:37I was cautiously optimistic, like most fanbases who come into new money, says John Blaine,
02:42vice chairman of the Everton Shareholders Association.
02:45We could see he didn't have the buying power of a Sheikh Mansour or Roman Abramovich, but
02:50Bill Kenwright used to say,
02:51This is no longer a game for millionaires, it's a game for billionaires.
02:55Actions do speak louder than words, though.
02:56It's great to spend money, but even in your day-to-day life, spending it badly is potentially
03:01worse than not spending it at all.
03:03Moshiri spared no expense on early statement appointments.
03:06Roberto Martinez was sacked as Everton finished 11th again in 2015-16, replaced by Ronald
03:12Koeman from Southampton for a reported £6m per year.
03:17Steve Walsh, who was key in Leicester's improbable Premier League title triumph, became
03:20the club's first financial director of football that summer.
03:24The new owner made further waves in his adoptive city by co-purchasing the iconic Royal Liver
03:28Building, which later housed the club's administrative offices.
03:32A willingness to court, the media was firmly at odds with the often stuffy nature of his
03:36inherited hierarchy.
03:38After Everton's climb to 7th in 2016-17, earning a return to Europa League football,
03:43the next step in the chartered accountant's master plan was to win the 2017 summer transfer
03:47window in a concerted attempt to progress the toffees even further.
03:52Amid the giddiness and vanity signings, in came Gylfi Sigurdsson in a £45m deal, Jordan
03:57Pickford and Michael Keane, who were £30m each, David Clarsen for £26.3m, Nikola Vlasic
04:04for £9m, plus the return of Wayne Rooney on a free transfer.
04:08There was an absence of coherent strategy in the £125m total splurge.
04:13Rooney, Sigurdsson, Clarsen and Vlasic each played similar roles, largely operating off
04:18of a striker, while the club found itself bereft of the proven marksmen needed to fill
04:22the void left by Romelu Lukaku's Manchester United exit.
04:26Koeman later claimed he'd lined up Olivier Giroud to replace Everton's record Premier
04:29League goalscorer, and even had the Arsenal man in the building before the French dreamboat's
04:34late change of heart.
04:36Ronald was fighting with the club until the last day of the transfer window, Jan Kluytenberg,
04:41Everton's then-fitness coach, tells 442.
04:43If you sell your biggest striker and there's nobody else to come in, you know it will be
04:47a big problem.
04:49Everybody was working to get a new striker in, who could score a lot of goals.
04:52That was a big loss for the club.
04:54Desperate times forced the Dutchman to swallow his pride and reintegrate Umar Nias in the
04:58hope of salvaging his flatlining tenure.
05:01Having banished the Senegalese striker to the under-23s a year earlier, it wasn't
05:05enough.
05:06After winning just two of his opening nine league fixtures, and the Toffees in the bottom
05:09three, Koeman was dismissed.
05:12Caretaker David Unsworth, part of the side that won Everton's last trophy, the 1995
05:16FA Cup, fared little better as his temporary charges crashed out of the Europa League group
05:22stage with barely a whimper, losing 3-0 in Lyon and 5-1 at home to Atalanta.
05:27During a five-week search for Koeman's successor, Meshiri sought the council of esteemed figures
05:32within Goodison's employ, including Joe Royal, the manager for the FA Cup triumph,
05:36who'd since rejoined the club as professional development coordinator.
05:39I only spoke to him a couple of times.
05:42One of the last times was after Atalanta battered us, Royal tells 442.
05:46I never told him they were blaming managers.
05:48David Unsworth was in charge, and I said, it's nothing to do with that.
05:52The players aren't good enough, Mr. Meshiri.
05:54It was all very amiable, but that was probably the last time I ever spoke to him.
05:58Sam Allardyce's eventual coronation instigated another theme of madness over method, with
06:02no consistent style of play among the club's managerial choices.
06:06For the start of 2018-19, Marco Silva replaced the one-timed England boss's pragmatism,
06:11but the Portuguese lasted just 18 months.
06:15In December 2019, Meshiri finally struck upon a coach whose pedigree and reputation perfectly
06:19aligned with his vision, Mr. Carlo Ancelotti.
06:23On the rebound from a 19-month spell with Napoli, when Everton became early Premier
06:27League leaders in the 2020-21 season, inspired by new signings James Rodriguez, the good
06:33times finally appeared set to roll.
06:35As it turned out, Ancelotti's decision to rejoin Real Madrid, just a week after the
06:39Toffees had botched a season-long bid for European football, coincided with an abrupt
06:44end to any sort of fan-based optimism.
06:46The hiring of former Liverpool boss Rafa Benitez was unsurprisingly unpopular.
06:51Just as years of reckless spending came home to roost, despite cost-cutting measures to
06:55satisfy the Premier League's profit and sustainability regulations, Di Maregre's
06:59£1.7m arrival constituted their sole cash signing that summer.
07:04The club still failed to balance its books, having already lost nearly £400m over the
07:08previous four seasons.
07:10The Toffees later announced a deficit of £44.7m for 2021-22, which culminated with the club
07:17narrowly avoiding relegation under Frank Lampard.
07:20Benitez had been sacked in mid-January, mere days after being allowed to sign Vitaly Mikhalenko
07:24and Nathan Paterson for a combined £33m.
07:28That summer heralded a return of the sell-to-buy model that had been commonplace under Ken
07:32Wright's administration.
07:33Amadou Onana, Dwight McNeil, Neil Maupay and James Garner were amongst those signed after
07:39Richarlison's £60m sale to Tottenham Hotspur.
07:42The club fared no better on the pitch.
07:44Lampard was the latest January sacking, this time during a window frustratingly devoid
07:48of new arrivals.
07:50Only Abdoulaye Dekore's final day goal against Bournemouth prevented relegation to the Championship
07:54under new boss Sean Dyche.
07:57Off-field issues have not gone away though, with Everton having now been summoned before
08:01an independent commission over an FFP breach, for which they have now been docked 10 points,
08:06with potential further ramifications to follow.
08:10All this has come during the construction of Everton's new stadium at Bramley Moor
08:14Dock.
08:15As Goodison Park began to look more and more of an anachronism, Meshiri agreed a deal to
08:19purchase the disused waterfront site just a year into his tenure, but its scope for
08:23redevelopment was stimmied by adjoining rows of Victorian-era terraced housing.
08:27Bramley Moor not only represented a long-term solution to the Grand Old Lady, but also a
08:31shot at redemption for Everton.
08:33According to Meshiri, costs for the stadium total a whopping £760m.
08:39There had been suggestions that this could be Everton's last full season at Goodison,
08:42ahead of a possible mid-season move in 2024-25, but the club have since said that relocation
08:48could potentially take place in the summer of 2025.
08:52The stadium was also tinged by tragedy in mid-August, after Michael Jones, a 26-year-old
08:56ventilation engineer and match-going Evertonian, was killed in an on-site accident.
09:01Covid and Russia's invasion of Ukraine have been contributing factors to the Toffees'
09:06financial situation, and last March they severed ties with USM Holdings, the umbrella company
09:11for Alisher Usmanov's stable of Russian brands, which was heavily intertwined with
09:14the club's commercial operations.
09:17That link-up included an extensive sponsorship deal for their Finch Farm training ground
09:21and also incorporated a lucrative option to match any naming rights bids for their new
09:25stadium.
09:26The horrible things going on in Ukraine probably kiboshed any chance that Usmanov would come
09:29out of the shadows and be proactively involved in the football club, says Everton's shareholders'
09:34association's blame.
09:36Stability has not been much better on the football front since Meshiri's February
09:392016 arrival.
09:40The club have had just three campaigns without a mid-season change of manager.
09:44When Koeman got his marching orders in October 2017, it was chairman Ken Wright who was tasked
09:48with delivering the news after a 5-2 home loss to Arsenal.
09:52Meshiri had been present at the game during one of his semi-regular appearances at Goodison,
09:56visits which ended in 2021.
09:58I was outside with assistant manager Irwin Koeman and the squad members who didn't
10:02play in that game, remembers Glutenberg.
10:04We came in and saw the chairman.
10:05Irwin said, I think there'll be a special message coming for us.
10:08I thought, well of course, it's not a good start to the season, but maybe he's coming
10:12to give Ronald an extra hug and say that for now, we'll continue.
10:15But he was only two minutes in his office.
10:17That was a big disappointment, especially for Ronald, because he put a lot of energy
10:21and effort into the club.
10:22They realised that the start of the season was not going well, and I understand that,
10:26but it was more of an emotional thing because of the fans' reaction.
10:29Supporter discourse has not always dictated the pace of Everton's managerial changes.
10:33Benitez was afforded a stay of execution that led to director of football Michael Brand's
10:37resignation, while Silva and Lampard's exits were prolonged to the point that the latter's
10:41squad learned of his downfall via the media.
10:44During a five-hour wait for official confirmation, the former Chelsea and England midfielder
10:47was disposed at a time when relations between the boardroom and terraces had plunged to
10:51fresh depths.
10:52After Kenwright, chief executive Denise Barrett-Baxendale, chief finance and strategy officer Grant Ingalls
10:58and non-executive director Graeme Sharp, the club's two-time title-winning striker, were
11:03advised not to attend January's defeat to relegation rivals Southampton out of concern
11:07for real and credible threats to their safety.
11:11One of the more serious claims alleged that Barrett-Baxendale had been put in a headlock
11:15by a man while leaving the director's box after a fixture at Goodison in January.
11:19In the immediate aftermath of the incident, police insisted they had no reports of threats
11:23or incidents, prompting further criticism of the board from some supporters.
11:28Headlock gate became a tipping point for disenfranchised fans to follow.
11:32The club did our job for us, says Chris Hannan, from the NSNOW campaign group, their name
11:37being a tweak on the acronym of the club's Latin motto, Nils Satis Nisi Optimum, which
11:42means nothing but the best is good enough.
11:45They basically turned the majority of people who attended the next match against them,
11:48Hannan adds.
11:49We must have had 5,000 or 6,000 outside before the game against Arsenal.
11:53The hardest thing about the protest was getting people out of a routine.
11:57We tried to create one, meeting in the Royal Oak pub, having a drink, then doing the march.
12:02Fan activism continued to play a part when Everton narrowly preserved their Premier League
12:06status thanks to Decore's goal against Bournemouth.
12:09Visceral chants of Sack the Board reverberated around Goodison in the final whistle's immediate
12:13aftermath, and were heeded weeks later when three of the four directors who'd been advised
12:17to stay away opted to leave their posts for good.
12:20That announcement was accompanied by a statement confirming that the future of Kenwright would
12:23be communicated in the next 48 hours.
12:27Some 11 days later, Meshiri's confirmation that he'd decided to retain the chairman
12:30on an interim board for an important period of transition did not go down all that well
12:35with a large section of the fanbase.
12:37Billy's pretty smart, but he also thinks like the fans, says Cluttenberg, believing
12:41that actually, when Koeman was fired, an edgier decision was taken to quell angry supporters
12:46immediately after a heavy loss, rather than patience and calm being shown.
12:50Meshiri, I've never met him personally, he continues, so it's a little bit difficult
12:55to talk about somebody I never met.
12:57He was the owner, but sometimes it's also a bit of a problem if you don't really have
13:00the knowledge of football.
13:01Avoiding relegation last term did at least stave off even more potential problems.
13:05September's announcement that Meshiri had agreed to sell his entire 94.1% controlling
13:10stake to American Investment Fund's 777 partners, who have already stumped up a £20m loan to
13:15help short-term working capital, carries the potential to bring an end to that financial
13:20deadlock, while also signalling the long-awaited break with what has become a truly dysfunctional
13:25ownership.
13:26If approved by regulatory bodies, the decision is expected by early December.
13:31The Miami-based operators of a global multi-club network will ascend to power by the end of
13:352023.
13:37But it could just as easily be an archetypal case of jumping out of the frying pan and
13:40into the fire.
13:41For now, fans remain concerned, amid ongoing scrutiny of their potential new custodians,
13:46who face dissent from fans at other clubs in their portfolio, including Hertha Berlin,
13:50Standard Liège and Red Star in Paris.
13:53I think we're all scared by the last two owners, admits Hannan.
13:56Everyone's got a bit of insecurity about what's going to happen, because it's a
13:59minefield.
14:00We'll find out by Christmas what type of owners they're going to be.
14:03If you were buying a football club, you couldn't ask for a better first 12 months to make a
14:06difference.
14:07Just by saying the right things, bringing the right people in and delivering on the
14:11new stadium.
14:12I still don't think this is the end of Meshiri at Everton, though.
14:15No way.
14:16Hannan's scepticism that this will be the 68-year-old's last ride reflects the sheer
14:19rump at its ability that came normalised under his watch.
14:23When it finally happens, hardly any Evertonians will mourn Meshiri's departure.
14:27The man they once believed would be the answer to all their prayers, turned out to be their
14:32worst nightmare.
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