Everton have endured mixed fortunes this season, suffering a dreadful start under Marco Silva, before caretaker boss Duncan Ferguson and Carlo Ancelotti revived the Merseyside club and made a European finish a possibility.
Currently, the Toffees reside in 11th spot in the Premier League but are just four points shy of the Europa League places. In the four years since Farhad Moshiri brought a majority 49.9 per cent stake in Everton little has changed, despite the vast sums of wealth he has pumped into Goodison Park.
When the deal was struck Bill Kenwright described Moshiri as the “perfect partner”, but in the four years since the benefactor has invested £350m into the first-team squad, it has yielded few results and caused record losses of £111.8m. Arrivals such as Yannick Bolasie, Davy Klaassen and Moise Kean have all arrived for around £25m, and either been quickly moved on or failed to live up to expectations on the pitch. Overall the recruitment policy at the club has been disastrous, which is part of the reason Marcel Brands was hired from PSV Eindhoven as director of football.
Furthermore, results on the pitch have predominantly stagnated, and the Toffees have failed to break into the top six in any of the last four seasons, finishing seventh once and eighth twice in Moshiri’s three full campaigns, as per Transfermarkt. When they did qualify for the Europa League it was a terrible embarrassment for the Merseyside club as they bowed out of UEFA’s secondary competition at the group stage, winning just one game, their final match against Apollon Limassol.
But the most damning indictment of the lack of stability at Goodison Park has been the rapid turnover in managers. When Moshiri first invested Roberto Martinez was at the helm, there have been seven managers either in a full time or caretaker capacity who have taken charge of the Blue half of Merseyside since, while the Spaniard has gone on to guide Belgium to a third-place finish at the 2018 Word Cup. It was sold to fans as the “perfect partnership” but has turned into a lavish nightmare of mediocrity, Carlo Ancelotti is providing hope for Everton fans. Still, only time will tell whether he can bring success to the Toffees.
