Everton doesn’t feel broken anymore… David Moyes said it himself when taking the microphone to address the crowd following Goodison Park’s final Premier League fixture.
Having been asked for his thoughts by host Gethin Jones during the ‘End of an Era’ ceremony following the 2-0 win over Southampton, the Blues boss proclaimed: “We had unbelievable times here over the years, and we need to start rebuilding again. This club to me felt like one which was a big family, looked broken, felt broken, doesn’t feel like that anymore.”
Anybody who was fortunate to be at Goodison Park on Sunday or even see images of the scenes at the ground can be left in any doubt over what a special football club Everton is. It’s just a shame that new owner Dan Friedkin wasn’t there to witness them having chosen not to attend any matches at the club’s home for the past 133 years since completing his takeover almost five months ago.
Predecessor Farhad Moshiri was an absentee landlord for Premier League fixtures at Goodison over the last three years of his tenure, churning through eight managers in as many years at the helm and took the club to the brink of the Championship and financial ruin with an unprecedented brace of points deductions for PSR rule breaches. This was the result of his wild but aimless profligate spending earlier in his reign which Everton superfan Dr David France compared to that of “an inebriated lottery winner,” but while Manchester City have claimed the game’s biggest prizes as those still unresolved 115 charges hang over their heads, tragically for the Blues, surely no other team in football history spent so much to become so bad.
At least the billionaire accountant delivered on the new stadium front, and that was in the face of a global pandemic that saw professional football played behind closed doors for the first time; the threat of a breakaway European Super League whose would-be members of a closed shop were prepared to appoint themselves the elite in perpetuity and Russia’s invasion and subsequent war in Ukraine, which directly impacted on his own business interests.
Anything else appeared to be more luck than judgement as let’s not forget this was the man who told us: “It is through my lengthy discussions with 777 that I believe they are the best partners to take our great club forward,” after agreeing a sale with the controversial Miami-based private investment firm that has now collapsed.
Moshiri, who went against the advice of director of football Marcel Brands and chairman, the late Bill Kenwright, to make Kop Idol Rafael Benitez the most-controversial managerial appointment in the history of the most-passionate city in English football, also spurned the opportunity to bring back Moyes on more than one occasion. Thankfully, one of the first big decisions made by The Friedkin Group after taking the reins, was to restore the Glaswegian, who steered Everton to nine top-eight Premier League finishes, including their highest-ever position of fourth in the competition in 2004/05 to the hot seat for what is a pivotal moment in the club’s history.
