On Sunday afternoon, the Premier League will conclude. One set of supporters who will be able to relax and not worry about the spectre of doom and relegation is Everton fans. The Toffees face a trip to title-challenging Arsenal, but the game is of little consequence for the men from Merseyside.
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For the first time in three seasons, the Toffees haven’t had to worry about results going into the season’s final few weeks. Since recording a 1-0 home win over Brentford on April 27th, the results have been mainly meaningless for the Toffees.
For Everton fans, the break from worrying about their club’s on-field performances at least is a refreshing change.
Dyche has played a significant role in the relatively successful season
The Toffees survival has been masterminded by head coach Sean Dyche, who has proven in the past that he doesn’t need many resources to give a team relative success.
Dyche’s strong personality and demeanour were just what the club needed in possibly its toughest period in history.
In Everton’s current situation, success is preserving their Premier League status until they can reap the rewards their brand-new Bramley Moore stadium is expected to bring.
For most of the Merseyside club’s 146-year history, finishing just above the relegation zone would have been considered a massive failure.
Everton has only spent four seasons out of the English top flight since the league’s establishment in 1888.
No club has featured in more top-flight seasons than Everton. Only Arsenal have featured in more consecutive campaigns in English football’s elite league.
With that history comes a massive burden of expectations. However, most Evertonians are currently very much realists because of the club’s current state.
Club with major difficulties
Sean Dyche must have wondered what he had done in a previous life to deserve some of the club’s problems in his 18-month tenure. The former Burnley boss guided the team to safety last season and would have hoped for a better campaign in season 2023/24.
The summer of 2023 was a difficult one, as reportedly, the club spent very little money on new signings. Wingers Arnaut Danjuma and Jack Harrison arrived on loan. At the same time, Portuguese forward duo Youssef Chermiti and Beto also arrived, the former for a small fee and reportedly the latter for a fee paid in instalments.
The transfer business showed that the Merseysiders were no longer the big-spending club of the past. This was for two reasons. First, owner Farhad Moshiri was looking to sell the club, and second, maybe most importantly, the club was walking a dangerous tightrope involving PSR, which we will get to later on.
Both have massively affected Everton. The proposed takeover of USA investment firm 777 now looks in significant doubt, having dragged on for over seven months.
The company’s finances have been called into question on numerous occasions, and it hasn’t been able to meet the criteria that the Premier League set for them to acquire the Merseyside club.
It now seems that other parties are interested in purchasing Everton with 777’s initial exclusivity period expired.
With the club’s finances in dire straits primarily attributed to the loss of sponsorship deals due to the Russia-Ukraine conflict, there has been talk of administration, which would be devastating for such a historic football institution.
The big points deduction
Just when it looked like things were looking up for Everton, in November, the Premier League issued the Toffees a ten-point deduction for failing to stay within the limits of PSR over a three-year period.
It was the first time a Premier League club had ever been given a points deduction due to PSR issues. If they had gone into administration, the deduction would have been only nine points.
Many believed the punishment was harsh and claimed that the Premier League was using Everton as a scapegoat to prevent the government from implementing an independent regulator.
Unfortunately, for the Premier League, the punishment being the first of its kind, the rules for punishing the Toffees were not set in stone. This led to questions in parliament about the points deduction, and many MPs asked questions about the Premier League’s competency.
In many ways, the points deduction debacle has only illuminated how the English top flight is run and its rules and regulations. In March, the government announced plans to bring in a football regulator.
In February, an independent committee reduced Everton’s ten-point deduction to six points. However, Everton was then handed a second PSR charge of a two-point deduction, even though they had already been punished for some of the financial period the charge covered with the first deduction.
Ups and downs
When the points deduction was first handed out, the team responded positively. It galvanised everybody connected with the club, including the players and the fans.
While fans continued to question the harsh points deduction, the players upped their game. Unfortunately, the Toffee’s form slipped from December until April.
In that period, they failed to win any Premier League games, a run that spanned 13 games. This was Everton’s longest spell without a victory in the current era of the English top flight.
However, a 1-1 draw at Newcastle on April 2nd seemed to stop the rot. Everton then recorded five wins in their last seven league games. The run included winning five straight home games without conceding a goal, which was also a club record.
Amongst the purple patch was Everton’s first home Merseyside derby win over rivals Liverpool since 2010, as they romped to a 2-0 victory at Goodison Park.
It was fair to say that Everton Football Club’s season has been somewhat of a rollercoaster of a campaign.
However, somehow, the Toffees have beaten the drop and, without the points deduction, would have been comfortably midtable in the Premier League. The team’s relative success is a testament to the job that Sean Dyche and his staff have done at the club.
What’s next for Everton?
Everton may have beaten the drop from the Premier League once again, but the club’s financial issues remain. They are reportedly still struggling for cash, with owner Moshiri either unable or unwilling to use his personal coffers to fund the Merseyside club.
There have been unconfirmed rumours of perspective local interest in buying into the club and interest from the Middle East and the USA. Only time will tell if the club can find the right owners to sort out the financial mess.
However, despite doubts about his future during that woeful run earlier in the season, Sean Dyche seems to be the right man at the right time, as he is the only person employed by the club who, during the club’s crisis-hit season, has put his head above the parapet.
Summer 2024 is likely to be another difficult one in the transfer market unless new owners come in and transform the club’s fortunes, which seems highly unlikely.
The club’s top talent could be sold, and money is likely to be scarce for bringing in new players. However, this season has shown that Dyche has the managerial capabilities to keep the club in the Premier League, even under the most challenging circumstances.
For Everton, that will likely be the biggest priority on the pitch next season, but who knows what will happen in the future.
Was season 2023/24 the hardest in the history of Everton?
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