by There are weeks that can define a club’s season and then there are weeks that can define a club’s future. It is not hyperbole to suggest that the latter awaits Everton. Monday brings a must-win Premier League home game against rivals Crystal Palace, the only team Everton have beaten in their last 11 games.
The release of the FA Cup third round play-off victory was a huge success as was a fourth round trip to Luton 10 days later. No date has been set in the diary but Everton are also expecting a verdict this week on their appeal against a 10-point deduction for a single breach of the Premier League’s profit and sustainability rules. The consequences will be significant when it comes.
The return of the points won by Sean Dyche’s side to the pitch would obviously help their fight against relegation but, with an independent commission accepting some or all of the club’s arguments, it should strengthen Everton’s defense against a second charge It was PSR. given last month. Lose the appeal, however, and not only does the 10-point penalty stand but the threat of a second point deduction before the end of the season increases. The second charge, after all, covers two-thirds of the period in which Everton were already found guilty of a £19.5m breach.
A third-from-bottom club, heavily in debt, whose ownership status is shrouded in uncertainty and currently run by an interim chief executive and interim chief financial officer, would be in serious danger of hosting Championship football in its season final at Goodison Park. And Palace thinks they have problems.
Without bringing back 10 points – which is unlikely since Everton admitted they had breached a PSR of £9.7m at an October hearing – they risk a first relegation in 73 years. Everton insisted the appeal was their main focus when the Premier League charged them for a second time in January. The appeal received the first paragraph of a commercial update last week from chief commercial and communications officer Richard Kenyon, which revealed progress was being made on a naming rights deal for the new stadium at Bramley-Moore Dock.
But the club’s time-honored appeal cannot clearly distract from the daunting task facing a team that has lost ability, energy and momentum since Christmas. Dyche says he prefers to deal with realities than maybes. The reality is that Everton desperately need the appeal to go in their favor as, on current form, they are running off the road to save themselves on the pitch.
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Everton were on a good run before being hit with the biggest sporting sanction in Premier League history in November. After that, Dyche’s challenging unit made light work of climbing from second off the bottom of the table with four wins in a row. The fourth in the sequence came at Burnley on 16 December. Everton were 2-0 up at half-time when leading goalscorer Abdoulaye Doucouré went off with a hamstring injury. They haven’t won a league game since.
The subsequent slump includes home and away games with Manchester City and Tottenham, but also two morale-damaging cup outings at Goodison against Fulham and Luton. Dyche believes Everton have only produced a superb performance of late in the 3-0 win against Wolves. The character and commitment was otherwise fine, but the lack of threat from open play is overwhelming during stoppage time.
Everton’s front line has often not done enough to ease the burden on the team’s defence. Dominic Calvert-Lewin has not scored in 18 games. Beto’s contributions off the bench showed why Calvert-Lewin continues to start despite his drought.
Doucouré has missed 10 of the past 11 games after aggravating the injury on his return against Aston Villa. The return of last season’s relegation savior, who has returned to full training, will boost Everton’s hopes of another escape provided he remains fit. The influential midfielder is the only notable absentee from the team that impressively beat Newcastle and Chelsea before Christmas.
Dyche explored a number of other options during Doucouré’s time out – James Garner, Jack Harrison, André Gomes and Arnaut Danjuma – but they did not go well. His options are limited beyond a small core of first-team talent, hence the lack of rotation that plagued Everton over Christmas. The spark that was ignited by a sanction called the club “totally disproportionate and unfair” has gone out. It must be reinstated as a matter of urgency, regardless of the outcome of the appeal.
Although the Everton case, which resulted from years of mismanagement that fueled mass fan protests against owner Farhad Moshiri and the club’s former board, revealed serious flaws in the Premier League’s regulatory framework. The argument for an independent regulator was strengthened even more. Suspicion among Evertonians that the Premier League used their club as a convenient scapegoat to showcase the need for an independent regulator has only intensified since the appeal.
The culture, media and sport committee was so impressed with Richard Masters’ appearance last month that it wrote to the sports minister, Stuart Andrew, asking for the football governance bill to be introduced as soon as possible. The organisation’s chief executive refused another request, in the interest of transparency, for the Premier League to reveal how it arrived at its own formula for awarding Everton points. The Masters replied: “As the committee is aware, as it is a private business, it is not our practice to provide or publish the minutes of Premier League board meetings. We also cannot publish submissions made by the Premier League board or executive as part of confidential legal proceedings.”
Behind one mess lurks another, in the form of Everton’s protracted takeover by 777 Partners. It is now 156 days since it was announced that the controversial US investment firm had agreed to buy Moshiri’s majority shareholding and the deal is still awaiting Premier League approval.
In comparison, it was 51 days between the deal and the approval of Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s investment in Manchester United. The delay seems understandable given the 777 legal dispute in the US and the Masters’ comment to the CMS committee that some takeovers take longer than others “unless we have received satisfactory answers to the questions we have asked”. A separate unanswered question is why Moshiri remains committed to the 777 deal when there is interest in his shareholding from elsewhere.
777 remain optimistic and claim Premier League approval could come this month. Officials from the company attended Everton games, visited the Finch Farm training ground and the club’s offices at the Liver Buildings despite the disruption. The structure of Moshiri’s 777 deal is understood to mean he will pay Everton less in the event of his release from the Premier League. Meanwhile, more funding needs to be secured to complete the construction of the stadium at Bramley-Moore Dock. A defining period indeed.
