Everton: Light at the end of the Mersey Tunnel
There remains much to unpick about Everton Football Club, but when things have been this bad you just have to grab onto whatever good news you can.
There is still a long way to go. All that’s happened so far is that an agreement seems to have been reached. But that’s progress. It’s something. And if you’ve been supporting Everton these last few years, it’s more than just a start. It’s precious, precious hope.
The news that The Friedkin Group (TFG) have reached agreement with Farhad Moshiri’s retrospectively hilariously-named Blue Heaven to actually, finally buy the club will have been greeted with equal parts joy and relief. Everton are a shambles of a football club at the moment and have been for several years. And they’re not even out of some extremely hot water just yet.
Last weekend, a draw at Leicester was an improvement, although they did again drop points from a winning position for a third game in a row. Holding out for just over an hour was an improvement on their previous two league matches, but picking up a first league point of the season on the penultimate weekend of September didn’t feel like a cause for celebration, especially with it coming just a few days after elimination from the EFL Cup at the first opportunity, on penalty kicks by Southampton.
So this week’s news arrives with the club in 19th place in the Premier League, separated from Wolves in the race for bottom by alphabetical order. And it is worth remembering that Everton need to stay in the top flight this season. Kicking off for the first time at that sparkly new stadium on Bramley-Moore Dock after having just gotten relegated for the first time in just over 70 years might not create the sort of atmosphere that any new owners would want from such an occasion.
Sean Dyche’s contract is up at the end of this season, and even notwithstanding the febrile times in which we live when it comes to the hiring and firing of managers, this creates a sense of uncertainty about the club’s future direction on the pitch. Everton have had an atrocious start to this season. There can be no doubting that. And unless there is some degree of improvement soon, it may well be that discussion of any new contract for the manager could be little more than wasted energy.
It is commonly known that Dyche has been operating with one hand tied behind his back. But that is an Everton problem and not an Other Clubs problem, and they have taken advantage accordingly. Dyche’s team has been weirdly accommodating in their first four games of the season, shipping seven goals (and scoring precisely none) in their first two and then chucking away a two-goal lead in each of their next two. All very much on point for the Everton Class of ‘24.
And potential good news from the boardroom doesn’t alter any of that. Leicester was an improvement, but Everton remain several degrees from having turned a corner with that performance. More is still required. It has been estimated that any takeover of the club would be unlikely to clear before December, and that has ramifications in a league in which matches continue to come thick and fast.
This timing confuses the Dyche situation, somewhat. Who is currently making the decisions at Goodison Park, and who will be over the time period between this agreement having been reached and it being concluded? Is the manager’s position more or less safe because the club may be existing in some sort of ownership limbo for the next couple of months?
Many will be keeping an eye on the date, should December come around with no completion being announced. Everton’s squad does need work, and the January transfer window is the only realistic opportunity to carry this out. And being in the last year of his contract, Dyche is currently one of those rarest of football beasts; a Premier League manager who’s relatively inexpensive to sack.
But should the club be browsing for new players now? Should they be browsing for Dyche players? Or, if his position is to be considered in jeopardy, who would any replacement be and what sort of players might they want? There are a lot of questions and very answers, and the road ahead remains beset with potential issues and difficult decisions.
No-one should be taking anything for granted just yet, and no-one should doubt the scale of rebuild required if Everton are to become competitive again, rather than just playing out this attritional fight just to cling onto their Premier League status every spring.
And no-one should be kidding themselves that TFG are angels sent down from on high, either. At Roma, they sacked the extremely popular Jose Mourinho and had to replace him with another popular figure, Daniele De Rossi, in order to appease furious supporters. Sacking De Rossi early in this season—after, you guessed it, having given him a three-year contract during the summer—has led to considerable protests among those who are now incandescent.
But they are probably the best of a bad lot. John Textor, whose withdrawal from the process came about relatively recently, has given the impression that he just wants to buy a football club, and that scattergun enthusiasm has felt like a potential issue. Previous suitors 777 Partners collapsed under the weight of their own hubris months ago.
And of course, money is owed left, right and centre. The club’s previous financial incontinence in the transfer market has left a lengthy tail, though they do now seem to coming out the other side of a revolving door of FFP/PSR issues, and the matter is further complicated by the construction of a new stadium at a time during which inflation has shot up to levels not experienced in decades.
There remains much to unpick about Everton Football Club, both in the short term and the long. But it’s a glimmer of hope, just as a point at Leicester City was a glimmer of hope after such a dreadful opening four league games of the season. But the Premier League will continue unabated regardless of any movements in the boardroom, and Everton need to address their present, as well as their future.