Lampard lifts the lid on his crisis-stricken last months at Everton

Interesting how well he speaks of Denise Barrett-Baxendale, and her work in trying to get players in.

Also, the well-known problem of how difficult it was to shift some of the players he didn’t want.

Also, Gary Neville: "Sean Dyche, a very successful manager… 28% win rate" Er...???

I also found it interesting how low a win rate the British managers have to many of the top foreign managers. As you say Sean Dyche is very low at 28%. Lampard wasn't much higher and neither was Allardyce.

I think the overall picture of our club is one that is always in turmoil, and even Dyche has hinted at such during his time in charge.

Also Carragher, who should have known better, saying along with Lampard how much it hurt Kenwright and Denise not to be allowed to watch the team, never mentioning the truth of that.

Lampard saying we engaged with the fans who helped to rally the team at the end of the season… engaged with the fans? We dragged the fuckin' team, along with Lampard and his coaches, over the line to stay up.

What Jill Scott was there for, God only knows… you can't help your personality but she was boring and never said one interesting thing while she sat there.

I didn't think Lampard was that good of a manager. My first impression of this is Lampard is trying to look as if he knows what he is talking about.

He was well in with Kenwright & Co but he will never be any use as a manager. He will end up on the pundit gravy train and that is what he is pitching at. Carragher and Keane are not worth listening to. I have no comment regarding Jill Scott... Neville is just adding to his business empire; he will replace Gary Lineker. Ian Wright was quiet about being misled.

There was a briefing meeting beforehand. I just am not interested in their opinions anymore.ToffeeWeb is a lot more real and informative.

Boring.

I was sold on Brian's glowing recommendation… 45 minutes of my life I'll never get back!

Can't believe the plethora of clickbait sites on NewsNow who have just picked up on any old throwaway sentence from this lot…

Guess you didnt enjoy it as much as I did, I think Neville is by far the best pundit on television, and he always has had a soft spot for Everton. One of the few who openly criticizes the Premier league and was the most vocal of any pundit about our 10 point deduction.

I thought it was good to hear what was actually going on at Goodison at the time, as most sign non disclosure agreements but seems Frank didn't. What is quite evident is that Moshiri is and was a disaster for our club. As I said earlier I wasnt a fan of Lampard but I think he tells it as he perceived it was for his time at Everton. He said DBB was excellent and Kenwright was very supportive, and as a manager thats all you can ask. Just a pity the man with the money didnt listen.

His comments on the dynamic, or lack of, between Moshiri, Kenwright and DBB were interesting. Felt it echoed the views expressed by Brands some time back concerning the difficulties he himself faced trying to do his role. It also dispels to some extent the notion of Moshiri as an "absentee landlord" type.

Lampard also agreed with the suggestion that the Everton Board were often preoccupied with reigning Moshiri in. That's a view that doesn't often gain much traction on ToffeeWeb.

"Wild West" once the transfer window opened — you can interpret anything into that. But obviously not good.

Just reinforces what we already know, to be honest.

like Brian, I was enjoying it. Until the panel got onto their favourite subject - Themselves.

There were no great revelations. I think we all know how difficult it is to move average players on when they are on long contracts and wages they could never get elsewhere.

We didnt need him to tell us how much more structured a club Man City are either.

What I found fascinating was the way he defended Kenwright and DBB whilst being perfectly happy to identify Moshiri as a drunken sailor.

I could`nt agree more with Dave @6. If the passionate support of the faithful hadn`t dragged the team over the line. Franks CV would look very different today.

How soon they forget

Credit where it is due, Lampard's appointment did galvanise the fan base and got us over the line in a night that he mentioned as being a massive highlight for him.

That Palace game is up there with Wimbledon in my eyes.

The 2nd season he had to go as he wasn't getting the best out of what we had, shame really as the Liverpool fans hated him. If he wants to get back into management he would be best starting at a lower level to learn the hard way.

He was never going to slag off anyone at the club, no ex-manager ever does.

His fame as a player with Chelsea and good contacts got him jobs that he wasnot qualified for. He was a car-crash at Everton. All the bollocks about him "getting" us and yet he has managed to delude himself that he saved us, when it was the fans and the players.

Remember that he fell out with Doucoure, who has proved to be intsrumental in most of our wins. How we might have survived with a greater margin if Frank had played him.

The stories of financial mismanagement and our current predicament suit him down to the ground.

By the way his assistant Joe Edwards is the manager of Milwall and his win percentage is...28%.

He said that she did everything she could to bring everything together — maybe some on here may have judged her more harshly than she deserved.

Trouble was she was totally out of her depth. She would have had trouble steering a ship on calm waters let alone one heading for the rocks.

Not challenging the clearly falsified assault allegations did her no favours whatsoever, she was clearly a creature of Kenwright. Then she adds insult to injury by taking a substantial pay out when she 'resigns' and refusing to give evidence to the Premier League Commission.

She may have been great at running a £5m a year not for profit, but a £180m ailing football club, not a hope in the hell she helped to create. She was CEO for God's sake yet apparently failed to spot or advise on Everton's approaching inability to meet P&S regulations. Did she not read the monthly management accounts that Ingles should have given her, or maybe she did and was too proud to admit that she didn't have a clue what they meant.

If it was up to me I would be instructing solicitors to start proceedings for a breach of the 2006 Companies Act.

I was thinking the same thing. Doing everything she could to bring in players… like the ones that put us over the top for FFP.

Her job wasn't to sign players her job was to ensure the smooth running of the whole club. On that basis she was an utter failure.

Moshiri was in Monaco leaving the running of the club to Kenwright and his cronies. Denise was doing her best to help the Board? What she know about football, she would have done better, not financially, if she had stayed doing the charity side of the club but I'm not even sure she was very good at that, she was like her master, she knew how to look after herself and did very well, like him, financially.

In line with other failing CEOs, she should hand back her MBE and resign her much-used Honorary Professorship at Hope University.

Barrett-Baxendale is a nice caring woman but a total failure as CEO of a football club

Moshiri is a nice guy but just a puppet for the Oligarch and not a clue how to run any business.

BK - RIP - nothing more to say.

Grant Ingles - Inappropriately called an accountant

Graeme Sharp was a good player but a toerag as a fans liaison and director of EFC.

Seamus Coleman - would put them all to shame both as a person and a leader.

Of course he is going to speak glowingly about our inept former Chairman and CEO, it's the people in those positions who are going to give him his next job, safe in the knowledge that when he fails again, Frank won't throw them under the bus.

I'm no supporter of DBB, but are you sure she refused to give evidence?

I think I've read somewhere that she wasn't asked.

Recent years have seen Lampard and Rooney fail and Gerrard (who had an easy job in Scotland) also failed at Aston Villa once he stepped up to the higher level.

However, the experience gained could be invaluable for these people when the right opportunity presents itself (if they are lucky).

Moyes has been around the houses since leaving Goodison but, after failing at Man Utd, chances are he hasn't got what it takes although the Hammers aren't that bad.

Of course many clubs' top brass blame the manager immediately results go awry so it is a no-win situation for any manager.

To be successful, any manager needs plenty of financial clout to secure the best available players and it is borne out at Anfield and the Etihad where the respective managers have everything they need to help them maintain powerful squads in depth.

His initial job at Everton was to keep the club in the top light which he did... just. And his job this season is more or less the same, albeit in more difficult circumstances, given the points deduction.

So far, so good.

When the majority of supporters were on about sacking the board, I said then, they were not the problem; the owner Moshiri was the problem. It does not matter what you do, if the owner says "You do what I say," your hands are tied.

I am not excusing the board for mistakes that they made, to me, they would have had more backbone if they had resigned if they were not being allowed to do what their position allowed them to do.

The other major point that came out was managers not being given enough time to bring in the players he wanted to build a team. Transfering players he did not want, to bring in the type of player he wanted.

It sounds like Moshiri wanted to become an orchestra despite being a one-man band. There has to be a stand sometime a manager has to be given time, not to just avoid relegation but to build a team that will stabilize a league position that concentrates more on trophies than relegation.

Moshiri playing Marshall P Nut and Kenwright as the Rumpo Kid. Both idiots who strolled around the club like some big shots in Stodge City. Jokers the pair of them. They have ruined this club beyond repair.

He's obviously putting himself out there again with a bit of PR, but I believe his version of events to be pretty close to the truth. Even our current manager has hinted towards the chaos at Everton (how many books is he up to now, I wonder?).

Reading the comments of those who have and is all I have to go off right now, it's interesting the questions only seem to surround Everton.

It doesn't really tell us anything we didn't know. And as much of an interesting insight into the board members, they can't be forgiven for the false accusations they threw at us supporters and they chose not to attend. They abandoned us. But due to our resilience, we kept going.

How about Chelsea? Derby?

For me, I suspect he'll be filed in that category.

Sources say the British-Iranian businessman “didn't come across well” and was “slaughtered” by members of the expert panel.

Former Everton chief executive Denise Barrett-Baxendale and former finance director Grant Ingles both offered to give evidence to the commission on behalf of the club.

But those offers were rejected by Moshiri, who insisted on taking the lead.

His thoughts on Coleman, nice touch, and shows Seamus is a class act.

Why people suddenly wont say a bad word about Kenwright coz he is dead are beyond me. He is the reason Everton are where they are.

Bear in mind his woeful record as owner and chairman, spiralling downwards ever faster as the years passed. He brought in the hapless mobsters who had zero experience (for reasons we all know).

He bought in a no-mark CEO who was as shit as the mobsters. We could not be a more vulnerable target. Hence the Premier League's glee at unleashing both barrels.

They are not gonna let Everton go. We may be the club that rewrites legal history in the sport of football. A bit like Bosman did as a player.

I think I was a little surprised as they casually reeled off a list of "top" English managers, and there was Sean Dyche at the end of it. I'd love to believe he has a great reputation but, for me, I think that's pushing it a little just yet.

I'm not super critical of him, like some on here, but I just didn't think he ranked as this top manager… but then there are so few English managers at all, so I suppose it's almost automatic.

It was actually nice to hear them refer to him with the same level of respect as the others, and they even showed similar respect for the lengthy list of former Everton managers of the Moshiri era, despite the descent into catastrophe that they have been a significant part of.

One very famous football club said to me two or three days ago 'whenever we have a problem we say 'what would the Everton board do' because they always get it right.

Where you a good electrician, plumber, van driver?

Perhaps that would draw comment from people who knew you in your occupation and stated whether you were good or just crap.

Dyche's win rate is hardly spectacular, yet the majority of fans are tolerant of his efforts.

The ownership and Board had three different plans and DBB comes out of Lampard's view as the best of the three.

It was and still is chaos, the manager is almost irrelevant when the structure in which to manage does not exist.
Better to manage in limbo, than to be out of a job in a structured environment, so they come and they go and we get worse and worse.

Insanity, doing the same thing over and over again and expecting things to change.

He might not be the greatest manager around but he's not your usual footballing dullard; his opinion means something.

I am not sure how it is in England these days but here in the States in virtually every profession these days you have an idea as to whether you're good or crap based on KPIs, tonnes of other metrics, and the lovely both public and private customer reviews.

So, whether you announce that you're good or crap, you and anyone else who cares to know has a pretty good idea of where you stand.

Lampard wasn't particularly complimentary towards Moshiri and he didn't have to single out Blue Bill or DBB for praise but he did.

It might annoy some but Lampard is simply saying it as he saw it.

Talk is cheap and this won't inspire a phone call from his intended audience.

There was a sense of "it's possible" till you got to Moshiri.

The inference he did anything with managers beyond ringing Kenwright to say "Hire him … fire him" is pure Disney.

He took it all on his shoulders at times and it showed. The difference in managing a team like Everton with all its troubles is a different animal to even managing Chelsea.

A tough time at Chelsea is not the battle he had at us, the squad needing overhauling, the ffp issues, the board battles, fans in uproar and not getting results. Chelsea's squad could get you through 30% of matches with no manager at all !! They would still get some results.

That's where he was judged, results.
At the end of the day, to Quote Dyche "all the rest is just noise "

The difference in demeanour between the 2 is miles apart, Dyche is not dealing with less issues, he's got bigger problems with a smaller sqaud, yet you wouldn't know it.
That's experience, battle hardened, know how, and confidence.

He maybe be feeling the pressure, with the points deducted, but he wouldn't let it show, to the players, media or fans.

I got the feeling Frank knew it was too tough for him at the end, he can talk about all the other factors but he couldn't do the job that was needed at the time for us.

When we needed a manager, we got Frank... a cheerleader. His in-game management was piss-poor – a rabbit caught in the headlights.

Frank may not be much of a manager, but he's a very classy gentleman.

The club had no strategy because Moshiri kept sacking managers, and this must have led to Denise moving onto the football side of things less than 12 months after Bill Kenwright was offering advice to one of the greatest club managers who has ever lived. Carlo, didn't agree with the strategy of our then Director of Football, Marcel Brands.

The whole club was a circus with the blind leading the blind and an owner saying it wasn't his job to sack the underperforming manager whilst a board allegedly full of diehard Evertonians incredibly decided to try and throw the very loyal fanbase under the bus.

Lampard was a likeable man who couldn't deal with the untold problems that surrounded the circus but he was definitely taking us down which means that whoever appointed Sean Dyche delivered us a master stroke.

But he was tactically inept, too emotional and inexperienced. Dyche had an inferior squad and kept us up. And is doing a fantastic job (relatively) this season if you remove the points deduction.

I fear Dyche will never get the praise he deserves and it bemuses me.

But back to Frank. He was the best of a crap 3-man short list and didn't really seem tactically aware. Big shame as I really wanted it to work for him.

A few years battling mid-table problems without the jeopardy or plaudits to find what kind of manager he is. I do think ex players are a bit harshly treated when they become managers.

I think it's clubs who are too willing to give an ex-player who has pulling power a go, rather than the guy who's battled mid-table mediocrity for a few years with no money or pulling power.

Clubs are too quick to go "Oh, Lampard got Derby to the playoff final, maybe he could get us to the Champions League Final???"

In reality, he should've stayed at Derby and seen if he could get them up.

'm not against honorary awards as such but she used that 'professor' title widely, presumably to give her wider gravitas.

Personally, I'd be embarrassed to do this knowing I had not worked for it. Kind of symbolic of the Kenwright era. All fake bluff and smoke and mirrors.

As I said, bigger clubs' squad counts for a lot. Man City would win 40% of games if Pep was rotten stinking drunk, lying in a gutter bollocko blindfolded with his hands tied behind his back!!!

Gary Neville talking shite as usual...

He just gets on with it, hardly had a pot to piss in for incoming players, certainly got a tune out of a lot of what he was left with in players. I know I get frustrated with leaving his subs late, but overall, he has done an amazing job.

We are so lucky we have him, the guy has made mistakes, but a look at the bigger picture, he has given us a fighting chance. Love him or dislike him, Dyche will get us out of this mess, along with the players and the fans.

I was undecided when he came in, but am certainly grateful we got him.

You obviously have experience of being rotten stinking drunk, lying in a gutter bollocko blindfolded with your hands tied behind your back, so I'll ask you, what's bollocko?🙄

"...who was simply surviving the disastrous legacy of Lampard."

Who was surviving the disastrous legacy of Rafa, etc...etc...

The simple fact is we've had just one good manager since Moyes left and he buggered off to Madrid after they came calling. I won't say Lampard was a great manager for us because he wasn't (and he admitted as much in the interview as he "didn't win matches") but the one common thread that Everton have had since Koeman to Dyche is one Farhad Moshiri.

I will always be of the opinion that this club was run into the ground by both Moshiri and Kenwright, regardless of who was managing the club at the time. So I get a kick out of Evertonians with this "revisionist history" thinking that we'd have done any better with just about any other manager out there, given the issues this club was facing.

Dyche had experience in dog fighting and working within a tight budget. He worked on fitness and defense which at least set us up for some draws to begin with.

These one-sentence merchants have no empathy or understanding that the year of Lampard cannot be boiled down to a few words. That is a crass insult to Lampard, our club, and us on this site, but don't expect subtle and pragmatic Deano to grasp this.

I will always have respect and admiration for Frank because he walked (remember, Deano?) into a shit circus that no one could have worked with, he spoke to us as fans for whom Everton matters (and that fucking matters), and (remember, Deano?) Frank dancing in and around the main stand on that night is up there with my iconic Everton moments in my lifetime:

Sheedy's twice taken free kick, Bradley Lowery, Thomas crossing for Big Bob, Inchy Highbury, Andy King 1978, Horne/Farrelly, he aint heavy he's my brother, Rotterdam, Everton 4 Sunderland 1 April 6 1985, Rideout, Spurs 1 Everton 2 April 3 1985, Frank dancing May 19 2022, and many more besides.

Shame on one-line Hewitt and Deano who lack the wherewithal to expand their seven so meaningful and insightful words into seven sentences that might have mattered.

I think it's worth noting that a career in football, whether managing or playing, is not necessarily conducive to having a straight-forward and content family life. I get the impression that Frank is very family oriented and being stuck hundreds of miles away from the support of the family for the majority of the season must be difficult, especially if all is not going well at the club.

He clearly missed the development of his children for a year.

In my opinion, he is probably more suited to a team based around the London area or ar least within easy reach and with 2 goes already at Chelsea, the Spurs and Arsenal jobs probably a definite no-no, his past connections at West Ham might make that one difficult, his probable choice of clubs would be down to Palace, Fulham, Brentford. A bit further afield, but within commutable distance would be Brighton.

Dropping down a league or two, Charlton, Watford, Reading, QPR

I get the impression Frank is ambitious but he may just have to reign in his ambitions to suit his family requirements and to be fair his managerial ability.

The reality of the situation is that when Benitez left the club and Frank came in, this club was almost beyond repair such is the slipshod way the finance's were spent by Koeman.

It wouldn't have made any difference if we'd got Graham Potter once Benitez left, the club was too damaged with a squad that was hardly fit for Premier League purpose.

And the one man that has overseen it all is Farhad Moshiri.

He was advised against giving the job to Benitez, even Kenwright sat opposite Rafa bemused to actually see a former Liverpool Champions League winning gaffer there.

It all fell apart when Moshiri walked through the door sacked Martinez and appointed Koeman (again doing so while doubts about the Dutchman kept rearing up).

The best thing Moshiri should have done, when he sacked Marco Silva in December 2019 was take a punt of Mikel Arteta and give him time and money to build a football team...

Yet again he was seduced by glitz in Carlo, who was quite simply never hanging around long enough to build something from scratch.

If Moshiri is allowed to sell Everton to 777 Partners, then my belief is that this will just continue with us being tossed from the frying pan into the fire, and there is only so much a club and its fanbase can take.

"Beggars can't be choosers" seems to be a mantra that is being used by some Evertonians, but we have just had 25 years of that, leading to the most unproductive era in our history. Although it's out of our hands, we really do need to be a lot more vocal and demand who the club can and can't be sold to.

If you read what Ancelloti's lad said, Jim, there wasn't any real money, which just shows you how long Everton had been suffering with their Profitability & Sustainability.

"Weaken them then punish them" seems to be the route the Premier League chose for Everton. Maybe I'm just being paranoid, but it does show what type of club Frank Lampard chose to come in to when he agreed to become the Everton manager.

Regardless of the Premier Leagues PSR, I've always been suspicious and critical of them and their Sky sponsors and lackeys.

That aside, other clubs moved on to achieve success. Manchester United, who got relegated in the '70s and hadn't won the league since 1967.

Anything is possible if you believe.

Tough times, but keep believing. Forever. No matter what.

As for his actual revelations, he is playing to the gallery, giving the impression it wasn't me. As for Barrett-Baxendale, he paints her right as a messenger rather than a Chief Executive Officer. He comes across as firmly in the Kenwright & Co camp and opposed to the Moshiri & Co camp.

What he seems to have forgotten is that he was not the Kenwright & Co first choice and it was Moshiri who appointed him under fan pressure. That is why they were so tolerant of him as manager. Kenwright & Co then swung in behind him after his name was painted on the hallowed walls of Goodison, with the Denise proclamation of faith in him. But really it was to prevent Moshiri's initial selection.

Remember it is Everton, where the story is like no other.

I'm certain you have identified the crime, but I'm not 100% sure you have identified the culprit. Moshiri doesn't seem to have held anybody accountable… for anything.

Having pissed off Leicester and Southampton by poaching Koeman and Walsh, he then gave them a free hand to conduct the most ridiculous spending spree in the club's history. If he didn't understand there was no rhyme or reason to their signings, how could he hold them to account?

Amazingly, he repeated his mistake, allowing Marcel Brands to spend just as recklessly on a steady stream of substandard sick notes.

He allowed every manager to bring in their mates and/or their families as coaching staff... yet allowed the existing staff to stay? Even when he fired under performing managers they were financially set for life.

I think we sometimes allow what we want to believe to trump the view of somebody who was actually there to witness it – I'm guilty too.

I'm inclined to believe Frank's account of the chaos Moshiri presided over. Why would he frighten off potential future employers by openly lying about his last one?

I liked Frank as a player but feel relegation was coming with him. His management record or experience didn't justify a top job.

I cannot believe that Everton are alone in financial difficulty. Football clubs are probably borderline in financial difficulty as owners want success but financially with fans expectations it is impossible.

Frank's views are not helpful for Everton FC in their plight appealing a 10-point deduction and with another punishment pending. Frank: move on and learn from your experiences.

If it wasn't for Profitability and Sustainability Rules, Moshiri would have kept spending, because there were no financial controls at Everton. Effectively it ended with the Premier League setting the financial controls. That is probably why they think they can do what they like. If you control the money, why not?

Moshiri had access to a bottomless pit, which is currently overflowing. Maybe the bottomless put is being used by other parties?

For what it is worth, I thought Lampard was the best choice when appointed from an admittedly odd field, he surrounded himself with people with a suitable record and made enormous, much-appreciated efforts to understand the club. All in all, he seems to be a decent person.

He worked hard to save us from relegation, but the brittleness of the squad and his inability to deal with this lack of depth, saw him encounter problems he couldn't resolve and he understandably lost his job. We'd have gone down last year with him in charge, just as we'd have gone down the previous year if he hadn't been there.

Dyche seems a more suitable figure for Everton at the moment. There is a better balance in the squad and some of those who needed to move on have gone. A few remain on the books. The biggest problems remain off the pitch so there is little he can do at the moment beyond focusing on the immediate; taking it game to game as the cliche goes.

1. Everton were dreadfully managed by Kenwright for a decade before his joke of a 24/7 search found Moshiri.

2. By then, we were mortgaged to the hilt, saddled with debt from dubious Virgin Islands tax havens and dubious associates offering financial wizardry.

3. We had virtually no commercial presence – a significant cause of lack of income in future years' financials.

4. On finding Moshiri, he made the cataclysmic decision in stating publicly that Kenwright would handle all football matters.

5. Koeman ensued and spent a staggering £200M plus on bringing new players in on long-term lucrative contracts that would haunt the club for many years to come – becoming another root cause for the PSR failings.

6. No-one in control of expenditure at board or player management levels, no playing plan, the infamous 3 Number 10s.

7. Moshiri (or his Oligarch in Moscow) finally says enough and he gets personally involved making poor manager calls, listening to agents, getting one of the world's best managers… and telling him there is no more money.

8. Letting Kenwright appoint his board of non-professionally proven directors, save, astonishingly, Grant Ingles. His impact has been reflected in where we are today.

9. As a result of all of the above, and that we encountered a perfect storm, war, pestilence and economic sanctions... put all that in the blender,

10. The inability to prepare for an independent commission correctly, resulting in a humiliating penalty.

The seeds for where we are today were sown a long time before Moshiri, but his introduction and his total lack of ability to run a football club, or even employ the right people, has resulted in our present situation.

The responsibility for today is anchored in the past; ultimately though, rightly or wrongly, only two men are responsible.

If we get out of this unscathed, we have 777 waiting to greet us. Do any of us truly believe that a resurrection of fortunes will result? Or is it just a case of Moshiri cutting his losses?

This makes Jerome's suggestion @71 seem very logical but I'm only repeating what I've been told before when I say that, with the FBI seemingly all over a lot of things, then getting in bed with an Oligarch would probably lead to very serious repercussions for anyone brave enough to try!

It's taking forever to find out whether these new owners are fit and proper enough but it's a massive decision and, because it is going to have a massive impact on the future of Everton Football Club, then I just hope the right decision is made.

Given a choice, I'd sooner keep the 10-point deduction and get decent ownership, rather than win the appeal and ending up with 777 Partners owning our club.

Here was a football transfer expert who, under his tenure, the club spent around £300M on transfers and at least 10 of them came in on wages between 75k and 150k and went drastically downhill.

The crazy transfers and wages during his tenure are the primary reason we have a 10-point deduction. We managed to touch around 95% of turnover being spent on wages. He was the biggest disaster we've had in football terms.

To remind ourselves of how badly the club was being run, we sold the very experienced Luca Digne (good deal, imo) but used the money to sign two very inexperienced fullbacks, and also brought in Dele Alli without seemingly doing any real homework on the kid whilst the club was preparing for a relegation dogfight.

Brands was never his own man. All his decisions were someone else's. He was pushed out to be awkward with Benitez and Ancelotti by Kenwright & Co.

Koeman basically ignored him. Moshiri put him on the Board to moan about wages. He promoted Unsworth, letting him keep his previous job.

All bought and paid a salary. No selling fee gained for any of them = sunk cost and debt = a threadbare, badly assembled squad of leftovers.

Putting Frank in charge of what was left was unfortunately beyond his capability and experience at the time. A nice guy and he was part of that Palace event, got the fans, but was destined to fail.

I'm referring to Rooney Part 2 but perhaps we did get a nominal fee from the USA. He was on monster wages while with us though, for sure.

I'm with you on this. This is the sort of thing a teenager might come up with in a GCSE economics project – and get a grade C for because of the obvious flaws. Christine (73) makes some great points too.

Jim (65),

It would have been good to see Arteta as manager back in 2019. However, as you say he would have needed time and money. Unfortunately the money had already run out – apart from one last failed roll of the dice with Allan, Doucoure, Rodriguez and Godfrey.

On that basis (and given what happened at Arsenal), I confidently expect that Arteta would have swiftly been sacked or got us relegated before we showed any meaningful signs of improvement.

The most sensible thing to have done after Silva was to accept the money had run out and appoint Dyche. I expect we'd now be a consistent Top 8 side in decent financial health had we done that (although the fans would hate Dyche for not being glamorous enough and failing to get us into the Champions League).

Played 38, won 9, drew 8, lost 21. Win% 28.

That enough detail, Ferry?

I hope you didn't try to Google images of "bollocko"!

Knowing the Internet, there's probably a million meanings
I'll leave it to your imagination!!

The guy was a terrible manager, he should have been sacked before the World Cup and our baffling jaunt to Australia.

Incidentally, I was at the house of a club employee just after that trip and I was told how pissed-off some of the players were that they had to fly business class and not on a private jet.

Lampard took the job because he was desperate. He cost us big money and nearly got us relegated. He might be a nice guy… a very rich nice guy.

Brands couldn't tell the difference between a talented player and one effective in the Premier League. And he was allergic to buying goalscorers.

I wanted Arteta, but I thought he was too intelligent to join a club as badly run as ours with Kenwright at the helm.

I wanted Dyche after Ancelotti, but it would cost compensation. And Moshiri is the thick-as-mince idiot who prefers a 'name' rather than apply critical thinking.

All this mess is down to Moshiri. An oligarch's mate and front man who thinks the oligarch can finance him and bail him out after mistakes. A man gullible and desperate enough to believe whatever nonsense Kenwright (and numerous journalists) spouted in oder to get his hands on a club. A man devoid of any kind of due diligence and critical thinking. I suspect he's blundered into the 777 proposed deal in the same way.

Lampard is simply one of many victims, albeit richer, of Moshiri's ownership.

"All his decisions were someone elses" ?

Brands was front and centre and doing all the talking when we were squandering all those hundreds of millions. Barcelona must have loved him. He steered the wolves from their door (temporarily) and brought them straight to ours. His signings. IMO, are the single biggest contributory factor for our current plight.

I don't think koeman could have ignored him. if memory serves me right. he was long gone before Brands even got here. - Apologies if I have got that wrong

Aside from that, I couldn't care less what he has to say.

It is an interesting point. In fairness to Frank though I don't think it was just him it was everyone flooding the field. It was similar to when we stayed up in 94. In the moment, I think everyone is thinking "great we've avoided it now we move forward." When you find yourself in the same position again it's much more alarming.

There were mad scenes of celebration in 94. In 98, Kendall said something to the effect of "Everton should never be in this situation again," and most of the crowd were letting out a relieved sigh rather than jubilant.

If Lampard was to be fully frank he'd never get another job so unaccountable are the very rich club owners (which Everton's never had since John Moores), covertly supported by our wealth-worshipping right-wing so-called government.

And whilst I know no more than others about Marcel Brands when he was with us he's never had a better deal financially than that thrust his way by Dumb & Dumber.

So, well off as he was, just why would a formerly successful football professional in his mere late 50's effectively tear up his own contract by venturing to merely hint that his problems were by no means limited to play on the field?

I think he felt shame by being thrust into such a high position by Dumb & Dumber (and rest assured every other club "in" top-notch football had long since got the full measure of the uselessness of Moshiri and especially Kenwright) and simply wanted to salvage his reputation by getting out of our club.

I don't blame him.

And whilst Klaassen may have been his own choice I'm sure he was appalled by someone else signing Man U's latest spent fat-boy and, for that matter, Sigurdsson too. After all, when he started in his job he was having to deal with the absurd mega-spend before he even got here by Moshiri/Kenwright/Walsh/Koeman wasn't he?

In that first half season when we stayed up he did pretty well. People seem to forget the number of awful refereeing decisions that shafted us - I've never seen so many major decisions go against any team in so many games. I've no doubt if even a few of those had gone our way we'd have been out of the relegation scrap way before we were.

The next season his obvious inexperience came to the fore. It was a difficult problem (we didn't have a striker - and I'm including Maupay) but we were playing okay and getting better (for a bit) but couldn't score.

And then it became obvious he was out of ideas and he didn't know how to fix it and the team lost confidence.

He always spoke well and did help unify the supporters which proved essential in keeping us up and for that I'll always like him but under him we were heading for relegation - absolutely no doubt.

He also couldn't get a tune out of McNeil or Doucoure who have probably been our 2 best players in the last 12 months.

Kenwright was the heart and soul of those Barcelona negotiations. Brands selected the players heavily influenced by the team around him with recommendations from Medical Services.

You are right Barcelonia did love Everton.

You are right regarding Koeman, apologies.It was Walsh who suffered under Koeman. Brands started just after Silva was recruited, though he interviewed him.

As for the season we were saved on the last day with a 1-1 draw v Coventry we were in no position to spend money but Kendall’s best days as a manager were long gone and in the twelve months of his third reign he wasn’t ft for the job because of illness and should never have been appointed and this contributed to a large extent for that very poor season.

Is anybody else worried that the Premier League gestapo are causing
Everton to plunge further into the chasm and with it bringing the likelihood of further future financial breaches by NOT announcing a decision on 777.
A decision promised before December, Then during December, then before the 31st and now ??????

Yes Moshiri lies non stop.
But what about that snake Masters and wtf is the PL Chairwoman ?????

Surely they Do or Dont fulfill the criteria ???
A criteria which is a financially, morally and humanitarianly low as you can get.

Keith Wyness iv 8.41mins
Worth a watch.

Sorry you are just making statements that are simply not true. You have nothing to substantiate your claims

Here's a few direct quotes for you.

Brands "We'll look after him" to Moise Keans folks when persuading them and him to sign.

Brands - "I could have got Mina earlier, but he would have cost us 5m more. When he scored against England I thought "shit". that'll put the price up. Negotiation with Barca were tough".

Brands - talking about signing Gomes "To be honest, the biggest help was from the fans. They helped me a lot in negotiation with him"

Gabamin - when asked who first approached him from Everton "it was Marcel Brands. He told me to come here".

Fabian Delph - I was blown away. I wasnt being told to leave City, but after speaking to Marcel and his plans I was very excited. I certainly didnt expect a presentation. I remember him leaving my house saying "it's Everton".

Brands preening himself about the signing of Iwobi - "Signing iwobi was not an easy one. A young boy that played already a lot of Premier, Champions league and Europa league games"

kenwright has a lot to answer for, but these deals had and still have, Marcel's fingerprints all over them.

Kevin is right. There are an awful lot of people going to great lengths to defend him, but he has played a massive part in bringing this club to its knees.

The guy spent around 300m on transfers and wages. The longer he stayed the more he spent. The more he spent. The lower we sank.

I've had some memorable moments watching my second wife, but for different reasons, that is up there with them.

I liked Mina, but he was on £6M a year (agreed by Brands in negotiations) The transfer fee and the wages meant he cost us around £60M.

Marcel's boasts offer strong evidence that he was given full backing by Moshiri to bring in who he wanted. He agreed similar terms with Gomes, Gbamin, Delph and several others.

There is a tendency to blame Kenwright for everything, but I don't believe there was enough hours in the day for him to have committed all the crimes he is accused of. I'd rather go with hard evidence and direct quotes than believe statements like "Kenwright was the heart and soul of those negotiations with Barcelona". Wanting him to be the culprit does not make it so.

Yes, he was a poor chairman and owner. Yes, he repeatedly lied to the fans. Yes, he held us back for years. Yes, he cocked up the King's Dock. Yes, he tried to take us to Kirkby. Guilty, guilty, guilty...

This club lived within its means before Moshiri. Painfully so at times. It suited the 'glass ceiling' mentality.

The words and actions of Sir John Moores even though before my time.

When he came in, I believe we were 17th with better goal difference than our rivals and only 3 points behind 14th.

Our squad was arguably better than it is now with lots of the same players but also the likes of Richarlison, Allan, Gray, Townsend, Iwobi, Gordon and Yerry Mina to call on. Not a team to challenge the top ten maybe… but not without talent and superior to our relegation rivals.

The fan opinion of Benitez was so incredibly low that almost anyone else coming in would have been greeted with relief if not jubilation. Following a universally hated manager is always something of a boon to a new man in.

I'm not suggesting Frank was arriving into a cakewalk but I struggle a bit with embracing this idea that he saved us when actually he did not really improve our standing at all. He underperformed with that squad just as badly as Benitez did.