It’s not joy. It’s Everton. Joy has not got a look-in since Carlo Ancelotti gave up his £12m-a-year Goodison gig for the soothing tranquility of the Bernabéu. It’s not relief either. Because, just like the Premier League offering a valid explanation for its brazen points-deduction shenanigans last season, it simply hasn’t happened yet. This latest takeover twist feels more like a distraction.
Forgive me for not yet lobbying Liverpool city council to allow Dan Friedkin to build a landing strip in Stanley Park for his vintage military aircraft in honour of the US tycoon handing Alisher Usmanov’s bezzy mate, Farhad Moshiri, a fleet of Toyota Tundras stuffed with US dollars to finally walk away from the club he so nearly broke.
Until it’s done, I can’t see it as anything other than a bitterly cruel deflection. Not the soul-crushing 93rd-minute Michael Keane own goal sort. No, I fear it could be another of those crude PR diversions that send the collective Evertonian gaze away from the self-inflicted disasters on the pitch and the equally unsightly league table. It’s become quite the tradition in Liverpool 4.
Humiliation at home to Liverpool under-12s? Never mind, here’s an artist’s impression of the new ground. Rafael Benítez in for Ancelotti and James Rodríguez? Look lads, spades in the ground at Bramley-Moore. Another capitulation against Bournemouth? Listen up, it’s Mr Moshiri on TalkSport.
Slipped into the bottom three? Breaking news: sub-prime Baseball Caps Inc agree deal to buy EFC. Fan protests over boardroom stasis? Revealed: Headlockgate. EFC’s latest suitors do one? Here’s some boss slo-mo drone footage of the new south stand. One point from five games? You get the picture.
But let’s just presume for a minute this is not another weapon of mass distraction, and Moshiri’s comically titled Blue Heaven Holdings is finally about to relinquish control to The Friedkin Group. The first thing to return would be hope, unfortunately. With hope comes expectation. And we’ve had an unhealthy amount of that for a club that’s been run more like a pop-up corner shop under Moshiri than a giant of the English game.
Some expectation is vital, of course. Nil Satis Nisi Optimum. This is Everton, after all. Actually, that’s untrue. It’s not been Everton for a few years now. It’s That Everton. Or rather, That Fucking Club, a phrase that’s become the go-to weekly conversation starter with my sons and my mother, a blue-blooded lifer who has resided within earshot of Goodison’s howls since the last relegation in 1951. It’s TFC these days in our house, not EFC.
It wasn’t all bad under Moshiri, though. He spent the dough early doors, as many fans appreciate. But the issue was how. First, by handing Bobby brown shoes Martínez £10m to stride away then throwing £5m at Southampton for the nakedly under-equipped Ronald Koeman. Then came the three No 10s (Wayne Rooney, Davy Klaassen and Gylfi Sigurdsson), countless ordinary Joes recruited for superstar fees and a revolving door of managers and half-baked footballing identities. Sean Dyche is the eighth permanent manager in eight years to try to make sense of it all.
Bill Kenwright’s billionaire of choice can lay valid claim to being the most wasteful misdirector of football in history. It might have been very different had Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine not indirectly put an end to Usmanov’s considerable backing. With the new ground almost completed, what can a US tycoon with a part-time commitment to fly-on parts in Hollywood movies and helping retrieve the remains of Missing In Action war missions do for us?
By all accounts he’s got the dough, which is a start. If nothing else, Friedkin can provide debt-free stability that permits exhausted fans to swap talk of profitability and sustainability rules and amortisation for more uplifting observations about Dwight McNeil’s pace, 30% possession and why Iliman Ndiaye’s early brilliance means the lad’s not quite settled yet. According to a Roma aficionado I know, though, there’s no guarantee of real culture change.
Yes, Dyche will be gone sharpish. This is the iron law of takeovers. But it’s not an instant must for me. I feel he overachieved last season and am confident we’ll be fine again once the season actually starts on Saturday with Jarrad Branthwaite fit again. But the football’s harrowing at times. So when he goes, the new man must symbolise a longer-term vision.
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Alignment is the buzzword for successful modern clubs. Everton need a significant upgrade in professionalism and commercial savvy off the pitch allied to a common thread on recruitment, playing style and philosophy from first team to academy.
The Roma supporter view is that Friedkin never speaks in public and prefers short-term, fan-pleasing appointments at the expense of long-term club stability. At its worst, this could turn out to be football’s equivalent of UK politics in 2024, where the perpetrator of a ruinous era of overspending/austerity is finally ejected from power only for the new regime to scrap the pensioners’ season ticket discount after claims of a black hole in the finances.
Then we discover the new architect of “change” is so cheap and biddable he’s getting his flying goggles free courtesy of a faceless post-Soviet oligarch.
Being positive for a minute, which is about as long as I can last, my Roma contact is convinced Friedkin will focus fully on Everton given the Premier League’s extra financial clout. So with a fair wind, the recovery pilot with expertise in repatriating the detritus of torrid conflict zones may just be the man to recapture the soul of a lost and wayward football club.
And me ma can start calling it plain old Everton again.