18 Season Preview 2019-20 FourFourTwoEVERTOn
Whenyouinvestaround£325millionina football
club, you probably expect a bit of a return on your
outlay. Instead, Farhad Moshiri has seen Everton’s
league position deteriorate, European football
become a rarity and opportunities to bring home
longed-for silverware remain relatively scarce.
It wasn’t supposed to be like this, though. When the
British-Iranian investor first arrived at Goodison Park
in 2016, Everton were seen as the ‘best of the rest’,
a club on the cusp of the elite. The big idea was that
all it would take for Everton to bridge the gap to the
elite was a significant dollop of financial investment.SHOULD FARHAD MOSHIRI EXPECT
A LOT MORE FROM HIS OUTLAY?
PREMIER LEAGUE
2019-20
That it hasn’t gone quite to plan thus far can be
attributed to a number of factors, many of which can
be laid at Moshiri’s door. The wrong appointments,
the wrong recruitment, too much upheaval in too
short a time: all of this has coalesced to undermine
the club’s lofty aims.
The nadir for Moshiri was unquestionably 2017-18.
Three managers came and went, a chaotic transfer
policy bloated the squad with expensive failures, and
the football served up by Sam Allardyce in the spring
was the worst seen at Goodison since the dark days
of Walter Smith.
After that low point, things have got better. Last
season, recruitment improved significantly under thenewly appointed director of football Marcel Brands.
Lucas Digne, Bernard and Richarlison, all signed in the
more economically sensible half of their twenties, are
thriving on Merseyside.
At the same time, Everton’s owner for once resisted
the temptation to sack a manager when the going
got tough. There was a period around February when
it looked like Marco Silva might be headed the same
way as Roberto Martinez, Ronald Koeman and Sam
Allardyce. That the Portuguese wasn’t pushed out
appears to have paid off, if the club’s impressive end
of season performances – which saw them stylishly
dispatch the likes of Chelsea, Arsenal and Manchester
United – are anything to go by.
After three years and a third of a billion pounds,
there’s a feeling among the supporters that Everton
might finally be going in the right direction, benefiting
from the arrival of better footballers and a degree of
stability. Moshiri has learned the hard way that money
alone doesn’t always equal success in football. But
only time will tell whether his education in this matter
has been comprehensive enough.LAST SEASON
PREMIER LEAGUE 8th
FA CUP Fourth Round
LEAGUE CUP Third Round
TOP SCORERS
Richarlison, Gylfi Sigurdsson (14)