Opinion: Everton are bound for the Championship regardless of whether they survive this season

Relegation is inevitable for Everton Football Club, and there is only one culprit.

With the Toffees on the amidst a second successive relegation scare following Sunday’s loss to Manchester City, the future looks bleak.

Everton haven’t suffered relegation since 1951, but barely secured safety on the penultimate game of the season, when the side turned around a 2-goal half time deficit to beat Crystal Palace 3-2.

The last two seasons typify the pattern of the club’s performances worsening since their 5^th place finish in 2013/14.

But what has changed in the last 10 years for the side to take this turn from contenders for European football to scrapping for survival?

The obvious reason would be the departure of long-serving manager David Moyes the season prior.

The Scotsman had given stability to the side during his 11 year tenure and after his move to Manchester United to take up Sir Alex Ferguson’s mantle, the Liverpudlian outfit has gone through 12 different appointments.

The clear decline in results for the side wasn’t until the controversial former Liverpool manager Rafael Benitez took charge.

Every permanent manager before the Spaniard maintained around a 40% win rate, with the lowest being Sam Allardyce’s 38.46%.

However, Benitez sunk to a 31.82% win rate, the lowest the Toffee’s have seen since Howard Kendall’s final spell on the Goodison Park touchline.

However, the main problem is one man. Iranian businessman Farhad Moshiri took over Everton in February 2016 when he sold his minority stake at Arsenal and purchased 49.9% of the side.

The new owner brought about a dramatic change in transfer policy, which has since spelled disaster for the Toffees.

In his first full season with the club, Moshiri brought in 19 players for a total expenditure of over £81million, doubling the previous record.

In the next season, the total spend was £177,600,000 and included Iceland International Gylfi Sigurdsson, who’s price to buy him from Swansea (£40million) was more than the total expenditure of any season before Moshiri.

Moshiri spearheaded the rogue signings without supervision and poured money into ineffectual players like Bernard.

Former Director of Football Marcel Brands admitted his difficulties to ESPN.

“The owners are very involved, which makes them easy to influence. That makes it very difficult sometimes.”

In fact, the current owner has spent 3/5ths of the total transfer expenditure in the club’s entire history.

The spending grew, and so did the player turnover. But without balancing the books, the spending would catch up to Everton.

It was during the 2021/22 season that the team found themselves close to the boundaries put in place by the Premier League’s Financial Fair Play rules.

A statement from the League stated that they had referred an alleged breach of their Profitability and Sustainability Rules to an Independent Commission.

The alleged breach came as no surprise to fans after the club’s flagrant spending.

The side find themselves teetering on the edge of exiting the Premier League for the first time ever, with their financial arsenal restricted by the dangers of breaching FFP rules.

Even if Everton survive this season, with the likely departure of England goalkeeper Jordan Pickford and cashflow being further hampered by the new stadium, the club’s future looks grim.