Transfer statements make bleak reading for Everton fans
I think one major problem is that there is no one with a proper football background who seems to be making the key decisions at Goodison Park.
Chairman Bill Kenwright is a theatre impressario, Moshiri is a financier and the current CEO came from the club’s charity arm Everton In The Community and seems more interested in winning baubles for various non-football acheivements than in how the team is doing!
Don’t get me wrong EITC is doing great work in the city, but Everton as a club and a business, are primarily judged and will ultimately succeed or fail on how the first-team does on the pitch.
The only person on the board with a football background is Marcel Brands of course. But the Dutchman who has been Director of Football since summer 2018, has a record that is distinctly mixed for sure.
Brands has brought in some good additions like Lucas Digne and helped Ancelotti secure Allan, Abdoulaye Doucoure, James Rodriguez and Ben Godfrey last summer. But then again on the debit side there are signings such as Iwobi and Moise Kean, so it’s a really mixed bag.
Adding new players though is always to some extent an unknown process with no guarantees and let’s face it everyone in football has made mistakes in the transfer market.
But perhaps more importantly Brands, despite getting a new three-year deal and sitting on the board with the others I’ve mentioned, didn’t apparently get the biggest and most decisive say on who should succeed Ancelotti when he walked away this summer.
The Italian leaving was a body blow to Moshiri personally, especially after the owner had put so mucn money his way to get him in the first place and then back him heavily again in the transfer market.
There were rumours that Brands wanted a young coach like Graham Potter or possibly even Christophe Gaultier, although it’s far from certain that was true or that either would have come to Everton anyway.
But it does seem that ultimately the final decision always devolves to Moshiri. And you can argue fair enough it’s his cash being spent, but surely these football decisions should be made by the person hired precisely because of his football background. Let him sink or swim on that choice.
More from Prince Rupert's Tower
- Everton 0 Arsenal 1: Blues fall to third home defeat
- Further chaos in Everton takeover as other lenders not keen on 777 Partners
- Everton need repeat of Arsenal win to kick-start their season on Sunday
- More madness at Everton as Moshiri now agrees to sell club to 777 Partners
- Everton takeover talk cools after UK govt doubts and further questions
Last season the Toffees almost got a Champions League place – even if it was always a long shot – only to be so badly let down by the players home form. I wonder what might have been different had the team managed to sneak into the top four?
And then on top of all this instability with constant chopping and changing of managers and so many expensively average players still on the books, came the Covid situation last year.
That has been hugely costly with so much income lost and at exactly the wrong time with the club already in massive debt and preparing to build a new stadium.
Now we are about to embark on yet another new era with a great deal of uncertainty and the team as farther away it seems than ever from acheiving the aims Moshiri set out when he took over.
For Evertonians who have put up with so much frustration and underacheivement for so long it seems as though at times this club is cursed!
Today we go again with a new season but with I sense little real enthusiasm among many fans and very low expectations. I hope and pray Benitez can steady the ship and turn this situation around, but if he can’t start well then it’s difficult to see him surviving long. And then what?