Everton supporters group issue challenging letter to Farhad Moshiri

The 27 Campaign of Everton supporters have published an open letter strongly criticising owner Farhad Moshiri’s continued leadership of the club.

This fans group was formed last season in the midst of the crisis over Rafa Benitez’s tenure as manager when Everton were in freefall in the Premier League and ultimately only survived relegation by the skin of their teeth.

Supporters discontent was high after a string of terrible results had de-railed the season following what had been a decent, but ultimately deceptive start.

The group, along with many other Evertonians, demanded change after years of mismangement and wasted spending.

This very public discontent together with a catastrophic collapse in form, eventually prompted Moshiri to sack Benitez, leading to Frank Lampard’s appointment at the end of January.

In the open letter they have written this week, the 27 Campaign demand answers to a series of questions many Toffees’ fans have been asking for several years now.

They ask the Blues’ owner why he continues to give his backing to Chairman Bill Kenwright and CEO Denise Barratt-Baxendale, despite the fact they have overseen a dreadful run of results both on and off the pitch.

As well as the football struggles over the past few seasons, Everton’s fianances are in a terrible mess and have directly constrained the ability of the past two managers the club have hired to bring in the players they want.

That has particularly impacted this season, with the failure to secure further forward options after Richarlison’s departure to Tottenham, badly affecting the team.

It has led to one of the League’s most ineffective attacks with a paltry eleven goals scored so far, the joint second worse total.

Such a chronic lack of firepower has begun to undermine any good work done to improve other areas of the side such as the defence.

Many Evertonians have in particular been demanding Kenwright’s departure for a while now and they will likely echo the view that it’s long past time he went. So do I.

The Campaign’s letter also demands to know what exactly the strategy and ambition is for the club’s future direction?

Last summer there was feverish talk of potential takeovers and at least one group of possible investors were supposedly seriously talking to Moshiri.

But, despite all the rumours and Moshiri allegedly wanting new investment to help stabilise finances and build the new stadium, nothing came of it.

Then later in the summer Moshiri published a statement reiterating his continued commitment to the club.

As this letter points out, he asked to be judged by what happened in the summer transfer market and then of course, on the pitch this season.

Well, as I pointed out the Toffees’ failed to add more than one striker in Neal Maupay when at least two if not three were needed, especially once injury-prone Dominic Calvert-Lewin was again hurt just before the campaign kicked off.

Despite this, and although the Blues hadn’t exactly set pulses racing in the first few months of the season, there were some positive signs of improvement.

The increased solidity in defence because of the additions of James Tarkowski and Conor Coady, being most significant.

Everton produced some stronger performances all round, most notably for me the Merseyside derby against Liverpool, when for the first time in what seems a lifetime, they matched their neighbours for intensity and attacking intent.

That decent start has since though been undermined by a series of bad defeats, most worrying of all the back-to-back losses to Bournemouth that preceded the World Cup break.

Unless major improvements (particularly of course to the team’s attack) can be made, I fear another relegation battle is looming.

And, although the building of the new ground is procceding at a pace, what sort of team will the Blues’ have and what division will they be playing in when they move into it at the start of the 2024-25 season?

These questions posed by the letter need to be answered and soon as the prospect of Everton still being a Premier League team by then seems to be more and more uncertain.