The clouds over Goodison Park have become more and more ominous over the past decade or so, and it finally looks like the rain has begun to fall.
After suffering a 1-2 defeat at home to Southampton, the Toffees find themselves in a perilous situation. The club are now 8 games without a win in the league and find themselves in 19th place. Keeping them off the foot of the table is down to their slightly better goal difference than Southampton.
After the defeat, the rage spilt out onto the street, with some of the Goodison Park faithful blocking players’ cars from leaving the ground. There have also been reports of Everton chief executive Denise Barrett-Baxendale being put into a headlock.
Dominic King of the Daily Mail joined Nathan Murphy on Off The Ball to find the causes of these incidents.
‘It is a buildup, really,’ said King. ‘If you take it back to when Farhad Moshiri came in. Roberto Martinez was sacked not long after that after taking the club to a League Cup and FA Cup semi-final, the league season was awful. They finished 12th, and it really tailed off.’
‘Then Ronald Koeman comes in, and that was supposed to be the start of a brave new era for Everton. Farhad Moshiri thought the northwest was going to be the Hollywood of football. That was the quote he used – Hollywood.’
‘Everton find themselves in this sorry state due to their recruitment primarily. The decisions they have made with regards to football have been consistently bad. The signings did not make improvements on the players they had.’
‘If I can take you back 6 years ago yesterday, they beat Manchester City 4 nill. It was Pep Guardiola’s first year in England. In that team, there was Romelu Lukaku up top, Ross Barkley and Gareth Barry in the centre of the park, and Leighton Baines was playing wing-back. It was an outstanding Everton side.’
‘It has been an affront to supporters as the players that have been brought in just have not been good enough.’
Everton will travel to the London Stadium to face a struggling West Ham side. This is an excellent chance for the Toffees' to pick up some points on the road and keep Southampton at arm's length.
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