Season 2011-12 Fan Articles
Whose Fault Is It?
By Matthew Lovekin :: 17/09/2011
39 Comments (»Last)
There is without doubt, a growing tendency amongst fans to blame one individual for Everton?s demise over the last twenty years. Here are a few contenders that I would like a simple vote/answer in regards to the main culprit:
Bill Kenwright
The current chairman has been at the helm of the club since Kenwright?s consortium secured 68% of Everton from Peter Johnson in 1999 for £20m. At first a saviour in regards to ousting Johnson but failed stadium move plans to King?s Dock and Kirkby as well as having no personal fortune to plunge into the club, has turned fans against Kenwright.
No fan should doubt Kenwright?s loyalty and commitment to being a true blue and he pulled off a masterstroke by choosing David Moyes to become his long-term manager of the club. Kenwright has also never taken money out of the club which is confirmed in the accounts and has brokered the sales of Lescott and Rooney for a combined £50m.
Kenwright?s downturn has therefore been his lack of business acumen. There has been countless other business mistakes as well as the stadium plans; the spending of the never-materialised NTL money, the Fortress Sports Fund disaster, the Trevor Birch appointment as CEO for only six weeks as the Board refused Birch?s recommendations, Alex Nyarko?s five year contract despite only gaining a four-year work permit.
More recent mistakes have been the twice-delayed Walton Lane development, the loophole in Dan Gosling?s contract and the short-sightedness of signing players to increased contracts and therefore reducing the transfer budget to zero.
In summary, Kenwright has done a lot of good for Everton by taking over from Peter Johnson and certainly has the club?s best interests at heart. However, his consistently bad management decisions combined with his lack of personal wealth to pump into Everton has made him the current hate figure around Goodison.
Peter Johnson
Former chairman, Peter Johnson soon became a hate figure at Goodison after taking over in 1994. The self-confessed Liverpool fan was also chairman of Tranmere Rovers. During his five-years as Chairman, Johnson authorised the record-breaking signature of rookie goalkeeper, Steve Simonsen, dubiously from Tranmere. Johnson was then forced to relinquish his Chairmanship by the FA due to breaking the game?s laws of owning more than one football club.
Despite being Chairman at the start of the Premier League, Johnson seemed to start wracking up Everton?s debt by sealing big-money deals under the management of Walker, Royle and Smith.
Peter Johnson was surely more hated by Everton fans than what Kenwright is now, due to being not only a red, but in charge of Everton?s demise on and off the field in what was English football?s affluent period.
David Moyes
The ?Moyesiah? saved Everton from relegation when he took over as manager in 2002. Touted as one of the best young managers in the game at the time, he has subsequently been named as 2003, 2005 and 2009 League Managers Association Manager of the Year.
Moyes has also led Everton into the qualifying rounds of the Champions League, an FA Cup Final, a League Cup semi-final, consistently high league placings and trips into the Europa League. All this has also been accomplished on a small transfer budget, especially compared to other clubs of Everton?s stature and below!
Therefore, why is Moyes on this shortlist of wrong-doer?s? Well dig a bit deeper, and despite these achievements, you will find that Moyes has been in charge for coming up to ten years without actually delivering anything.
The standard of football under Moyes has been dour at the majority of times, a succession of (some expensive) strikers have been ruined by his tactics (Bent, Beattie, Johnson, Yakubu, Beckford) and a complete lack of purchasing out-and-out wingers (van der Meyde the only winger in nine years). Creativity, pace and a lack of goals are clearly missing from Moyes? predictable game plans and he admits he is in charge of all the transfers at Goodison. His lack of tactical knowledge has often been clearly exposed in the few trips abroad and seems to rely on motivation rather than tactics.
Moyes? teams have excelled when they have a backs against the wall mentality but failed to produce when they should. He also has a strict regime and clashed with several first-team players like van der Meyde, Rooney, Lescott, Yakubu, Beckford and Yobo who all barely wore the blue shirt again. This regime may be fine in an ideal world, but unfortunately, Everton don?t play in an ideal world and we need to make the most out of what we have got.
It is almost Moyes? saving grace that he hasn?t had a large pot of money for signings and it is a common belief that Moyes will automatically do well if this was reversed. However, this is not necessarily the case. Club record signings under Moyes (Beattie, Johnson and Yakubu) all have to be marked in the disappointment column in his transfer dealings.
Current record signing, Fellaini has potential but still has rough edges that need a good manager to sort them out. Moyes? better signings have been of the smaller value variety like Cahill, Arteta and Pienaar. Perhaps Moyes does his homework more when he has to, compared to splashing (Lescott) money on the likes of Bilyaletdinov and Heitinga.
Moyes? insistence on playing safe in a match can be incredibly frustrating with sometimes seven defenders on the pitch or even no strikers. Ian Holloway built a goalscoring team at Blackpool by having lots of strikers, Martinez built a creative team at Wigan by having lots of attacking midfielders. Gus Poyet is currently building a fast team with flamboyant wingers at Brighton.
All of these examples were achieved at smaller clubs than Everton. A club reflects the manager?s style and unfortunately that looks bad on Everton as Moyes is clearly defence minded and Evertonains have had to endure almost ten years of what has been in the majority, hoofball, dour football with a pure lack of tactics and ultimately, lack of achievement.
Moyes is a good manager, but for a team that is scrapping and fighting relegation. He done his job in keeping Everton up in 2002 and cleared a lot of dead wood from a succession of previous managers. However, it looks like he has reached his peak and his team failed. Moyes? incompetence is covered up by the incompetence at board room level which looks likely to prevent Moyes from building another Everton team. Surely only an incompetent Board accept mediocrity from a manager.
Sky Premier League
Despite the popularity and resounding success that the Premier League has been since it?s introduction in 1992, only a small number of football clubs have benefited. Sky has branded the league and a few ?big? clubs names to every corner of the globe. Money has since flocked into the Premier League as everyone wants a part in it from sponsors to owners to players.
However, money has gone to money. The ?branded? clubs by Sky are the only ones that have benefitted. Manchester United are by far and away the leading success due to their management having the intelligence to capitalise on their fanbase by increasing Old Trafford massively more than any other stadium in this country. Arsenal are trying to follow, but built the Emirates about ten years too late to keep up with Man Utd, whilst Liverpool were simply content and didn?t have the foresight to expand and improve.
Billionaire investors have since come to this country to enjoy their latest ?plaything? with the likes of Chelsea and Man City benefitting but they surely need a more sustainable growth than the owner simply throwing money at the Club.
The Premier League has changed football from a sport to a business. There are billions of pounds at stake and several clubs have risked everything for a shot at success. Peter Johnson may have led Everton down the same financial path as Portsmouth or Leeds had the FA not forced him out of his Chairman?s seat, but is a small bit of success followed by massive failure any better or worse than stagnating into a nothing club like Bolton or Sunderland?
Obviously Sky are out to simply make as much money as possible and marketing the Premier League is easier with Man Utd than Wigan, but should the money be more evenly spread? It is only in the last few years that the Premier League have started to filter down their money to the lower leagues and relegated clubs. Perhaps instead of a sliding scale prize money depending on final league positions, every club should get the same money and the prize simply being the champions or being able to compete in Europe.
Sky has created a financial monster that only benefits a handful of clubs, not including Everton. Whether that is Sky?s fault or the fault of Everton?s management structure is unclear. Maybe it?s just jealousy that Everton aren?t in the ?Sky group?.
UEFA Champions League
For Sky and the Premier League, read UEFA and the Champions League. The European Cup used to be a great tournament as you had to be the league champions to enter the European Cup and therefore took two years to become champions of Europe. It?s rather ironic now that you don?t need to be champions to win the Champions League. UEFA has also created it?s own financial monster, but on an even larger scale than the Premier League. It?s no coincidence that in England there was a massive gap between the ?top 4? sides and the others.
This was due to their being four places available for the Champions League. The top 4 not only benefitted hugely financially but also again in brand name terms. All the top players in the world wanted to play in the Champions League and these clubs that competed regularly could afford inflated wages and big squads.
It is almost simple marketing that has allowed the top of the Premier League and the Champions League to be such a huge success. However, with this success, there has to be clubs that suffer and Everton are in that bracket. Kids at schools already wear Man Utd or Real Madrid shirts compared to their local teams and I?m sure Everton have been affected too.
It?s a struggle for any fan to support their chosen team when they have no hope of winning. This is why glory hunting fans have become the norm. This doesn?t just affect shirt sales, it affects match day attendances, other merchandise but most of all, it affects the mentality of the fan. Every fan wants to see their team win trophies but it is so much harder now for clubs without money than what is was twenty years ago. Money rules football now, and every club either has it or doesn?t.
I find it?s been really disheartening recently to watch Man Utd ?build? their team. Other clubs bring through their talented youngsters only to see them taken away at the first sight of potential by one of these ?super? clubs. Fulham, Blackburn and Atletico Madrid all got reasonably well reimbursed for their players, but what hope does it give these clubs? They can?t build their own teams, their can?t bring youth players through and these ?super? clubs still have tens if not hundreds of millions of pounds in the bank anyway by consistently playing in the Champions League.
The only reason Jack Rodwell is still at Everton is that he had a poor season last year. After such a promising season before, the vultures from Man Utd, Chelsea, Man City, Arsenal and even Real Madrid were rumoured to be interested. However, Rodwell had a poor year and they all signed the latest star player like Phil Jones or Juan Mata instead of Rodwell.
The only thing Everton can do is to build a new young team, but then the likes of Fellaini, Coleman or Barkley will surely all be poached if they have a good season as Everton cash in to survive.
Summary
Therefore, I throw open the vote for who is responsible for Everton?s demise as a football club. Do you think it is down to the poor running of the club off the pitch by chairman, Bill Kenwright or even his predecessor, Peter Johnson? How about poor tactics and football by David Moyes who has been in charge for over nine years? If it is not Everton?s faults, then someone who runs the game like Sky for the inception of the Premier League or for the money men at UEFA for the Champions League?
Reader Comments (39)
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3 Posted 18/09/2011 at 00:23:01
No job?
No family?
Haven't taken a walk on the beach this year, eh?
On the plus side, if there's a cash prize for World's Longest Paragraph, it's yours.
4 Posted 18/09/2011 at 00:32:33
5 Posted 18/09/2011 at 00:33:13
6 Posted 18/09/2011 at 02:23:17
7 Posted 18/09/2011 at 03:09:06
2. World Wars occurring just as we were crowned Champions.
3. Failure to redevelop / relocate over the last 40 odd years.
4. European ban just as we were peaking & our subsequent failure to maintain our position as a top team in readiness for the lifting of the ban.
5. Failure to capitalise on the gravy train that has been the Prem since 1992.
That's a few obvious ones that spring to mind - I'm sure there are a few more as well!
8 Posted 18/09/2011 at 03:17:07
The simple question should be who has been most destructive to Everton over the last 20 years in terms of running the business, good old EBITDA - which gets slated by investopedia (http://www.investopedia.com/articles/analyst/020602.asp#axzz1YAlDtExL) and lost opportunities then I'll rise to the bait.
9 Posted 18/09/2011 at 04:29:58
10 Posted 18/09/2011 at 12:26:52
With regard to Moyes, I?m generally a fan, but I can?t help but feel that he precipitated the current problems when he coerced Kenwright in to shattering the wage structure for the likes of Arteta last summer, presumably with assurances that our best ever squad had a genuine chance of attaining Champion?s League status. As soon as our poor start meant that this was clearly not going to happen, Moyes had to redress the balance, so we started shipping people like Yobo, the Yak and Pienaar out to slash the wage bill. This summer?s transfer activity served the same function.
Also, I couldn?t help but notice that one group of culprits seems to have escaped criticism altogether: us.
When a club spends beyond it?s means it?s usually driven by the desire to show the ?ambition? to live up to deluded, almost pathologically over-entitled fan expectations. Just about every club in the country has a following that genuinely believes that ?we should..?, ?we need to..?, ?we?re a big club..? and exhorting their chairmen to spend money that they don?t have in the pursuit of pipe dreams. Everton, in particular, is plagued by people who treat ?nil satis nisi optimum? (no doubt in capitals, followed by numerous exclamation marks) as a divine right, rather than what it is: a public school type motto that a bunch of Victorians thought was cool at the time. It?s not surprising that board members and managers can get swept up in the fervour, especially when they too are fans of the club.
Moyes recent comments about fans having to revise their expectations seem designed to address this issue but they?re sadly likely to be met with derision by the people who need to heed them the most.
11 Posted 18/09/2011 at 14:23:48
The suggestion that our Board are merely hapless victims of supporter pressure to achieve, that they could only respond to by jeopardising the financial well-being of the club is ludicrous & insulting. I don't like the term 'apologist', but we do seem to be seeing a number of posts lately seeking to deflect criticism of the Board by trying to blame anybody & everybody else. We have not arrived at our current perilous position overnight, nor will we recover from these pitiful circumstances very quickly, however, it is the current Board that have managed our demise. There appears to be no strategy to address this situation & it would be nigh impossible to have any confidence in this Board to deliver even if they could devise any kind of plan.
12 Posted 18/09/2011 at 16:35:54
But, like it or not, we - and by we, I mean most fans of most clubs ? are part of the problem. We are not simply innocent bystanders and we do sometimes exert unreasonable pressure on clubs / players / managers to live up to our ridiculously idealised expectations. Leeds United are the perfect example of where this can lead you.
As for us, I don?t think that it?s any coincidence that fan dissatisfaction with Kenwright?s failure to fulfil our fantasies reached a crescendo when the board made a mature, sensible decision and finally accepted that the club needs to live within it?s financial means. If we?d borrowed even more over the summer, spent big and challenged for the top spots, your average fan would have been more than happy to live the dream. While it lasted.
13 Posted 18/09/2011 at 16:56:58
The Board should have been responsible and said no more a long time ago.
Didn't Kenwright borrow £25m (from Paul Gregg?) a few years ago for Yakubu and Manuel Fernandes? The money that was supposed to be for Fernandes never went back into the club. Paul Gregg (?) simply said no more. The banks have said no more, but the Board have kept asking.
It's the Board that have continued to increase wages like Arteta's. Everton can never afford £75k a week to one player without Champions League football. Here's a revolutionary idea: how about we qualify for the Champions League first before paying these wages out, then being forced to sell players. The increase in wages has directly led to their being no transfer budget.
It's simple short-sighted management from the very top level. Again! Don't blame the fans.
14 Posted 18/09/2011 at 17:08:34
15 Posted 18/09/2011 at 17:08:52
As for blaming the fans, I?m not suggesting that we?re the only problem, or even one of the more significant ones, but we are a contributing factor - and the more people who are uncomfortable with that suggestion, the better.
16 Posted 18/09/2011 at 17:46:50
The KD Stadium seems to have been lost as a result of a Board room wrangle centred upon who would have control of the club, Gregg or Kenwright, very much to the detriment of the club. The DK fiasco seemed to be all about pushing through an inappropriate retail development for financial gain, but not for Everton. Even now we're told that a retail lead new stadium build [aka DK Mk II] is the only way forward. It seems to me that the current Board, none of whom have put any money into the club, are merely seeking a profitable exit - no matter what it costs the club, or the supporters.
17 Posted 18/09/2011 at 21:08:33
18 Posted 19/09/2011 at 04:33:51
Kenwright and this board have made mistakes but in the overall scheme of things they could have done nothing. As a local only non-brand with average gates of 35000 we do far better than we should and the concept that simply replacing the board will solve anything is as laughable as the concept that we should be doing well because our motto says only the best is good enough. For me the real problem at EFC is the totally unrealistic expectations of a minority of our fans.
19 Posted 19/09/2011 at 12:40:04
20 Posted 19/09/2011 at 12:40:04
21 Posted 19/09/2011 at 15:46:23
All factors you mention have a bearing on our current predicament, but surely the present crew have been there long enough for anyone still to try to pour blame onto Peter Johnson, however disgraceful his tenure may have been.
22 Posted 19/09/2011 at 21:03:43
As far as replacing the board being "laughable" can you justify why replacing a group of millionaires that quite literally have added zero value or zero in hard cash of their own money whilst they have been on the board would be so "laughable", if the board were spirited away and the board room was full of chimpanzees throwing excrement at each other behind closed doors there would be no change to having a room full of millionaires doing fuck all.
23 Posted 20/09/2011 at 03:19:07
24 Posted 20/09/2011 at 08:00:23
25 Posted 20/09/2011 at 08:00:23
26 Posted 20/09/2011 at 10:59:54
27 Posted 20/09/2011 at 11:33:31
28 Posted 20/09/2011 at 12:01:45
The only criticism I could give, and this is as a non-expert, is why did they not go for a share issue rather than bank debt. In that way me and thousands like me could again become supporters and stakeholders.
I'm a true supporter deep at heart btw and travelled everywhere to watch until I went to Uni in the mid-70s and then moved first down South and abroad most of the time to earn my crust. I really ache over what has happened but I still try to maintain a positive attitude and If I do criticise try to make it constructive rather than the totally destructive sentiment we often see here.
29 Posted 21/09/2011 at 12:02:26
If you can list what the current board of directors has done to the benefit of the club please feel free to do so. List items that only they have actually done.
30 Posted 21/09/2011 at 13:54:19
A football club is a limited Company not a charity. The board has no duty to put its own money in.
I could say that they were stupid and reckless to sell assets and borrow money to get where they are now. The problem is that we could otherwise have been in the Championship and I think that when that happens Everton will plummet into oblivion. Not only are they not generating revenue but they are losing support and my guess is that they are not generating the new support needed to maintain gates. We may look back at the current situation and see it as the end of a golden era. We may well be a dying club in its death throes.
31 Posted 21/09/2011 at 17:46:39
The suggestion that Moyes is fine only for 'teams facing relegation' is equally nonsensical as he only actually did this once, with us. He then changed Everton into the only team since 2004 to put a consistent challenge to the moneyed elite, albeit we havnt been able to break that glass/money ceiling.
Give me the name of a manager who has consistently put another team of Evertons standing in a better position....no?.....didnt think so. Because they dont exist.
32 Posted 21/09/2011 at 18:01:23
33 Posted 22/09/2011 at 02:52:30
I don't know exactly what happened about KD and DK, NTL, FSF, etc., again exactly the same as you know.
I listed their successes btw
34 Posted 22/09/2011 at 07:48:05
All the mishaps you list are well documented.... the farces are multiple. The bottom line says it all though..... practically ALL football clubs have addressed their stadium needs to help increase their offer and income streams. This board allowed KD to die. They then embarked on a non-viable, non-desireable stadium project at the behest of other parties. The park-end development then failed too meaning that they have not delivered a single thing in the entire 10yrs. Of course you knew all of this!
35 Posted 22/09/2011 at 11:57:35
Btw, I believe thet DK was a disaster and KD a lost opportunity of mammoth proportions but I don't have all information necessary to comment.
36 Posted 22/09/2011 at 13:08:09
The board is there to address all the off-field issues, to enable them to best support the manager.... this they blatantly have not done. There is no new stadium, no new stand, no new exec boxes..... nothing. Every asset (and there where quite a few when they started) has systematically been sold off, and yet still no improvement in infrastructure to help support the manager.
Practically ALL other boards have done significantly more to support their managers as evidenced by any league table of nett spends and/or stadium developments. Now, after 10 years, we are no better placed in facility terms, and we can barely secure loan signings. No speculation required!
37 Posted 22/09/2011 at 14:36:32
The reason why they can't even sign loan players now is that they simply don't have the money to do so. They are maxed out on revenue, debt and asset sales and very few clubs now are in a different position to EFC. I share your frustrations but their books show few signs of incompetence and you can't blame Kenwright for dictating his own terms for sale and not selling at any cost.
I use our league position over recent years as a quantitative measure of success and one achieved with little spending. It is absolutely on the anti-Kenwright faction to show conclusively that changing out the current board with an as yet unknown entity and no strategic solutions will guarantee an improvement. I have seen a lot in print in recent months but nothing in the way of anything in that direction. The only difference I see between EFC and some clubs is that Everton haven't had a sugar daddy throw some hard earned at the club.
How are the club supposed to develop and regenerate when we have such a massive wage bill for both players and manager?
For me it's far better BK and Moyes than Sheik Mansour or becoming a franchise club like LFC or United or an Oligarch's plaything like Chelsea. The EPL is unsustainable and EFC have reached their limit. I'd say that all but 3 of the other clubs have also reached that limit.
38 Posted 22/09/2011 at 16:58:22
Now if, in spite of all the evidence, by some strange stretch of your imagination you still feel that these examples can not be designated Board failures just because you feel there is yet more mitigating information you are not privy to then the same logic eliminates your "sucesses" - as you say, you don't know what goes on at Board level so you don't know the process by which Moyes came to be employed or any of the other areas of Board responsibility. Ultimately, all your posts seem to be saying is that you don't feel you have enough information to judge the Board & you dismiss any information others may be aware of, simply because you're not familiar with it yourself. You seem to feel that you can only judge the club on the basis of League & Cup performance, which you appear to view favourably. Curiously you then seem to try to impose the same criteria on others & your only argument seems to be that any criticism is invalid ... because you say so.
39 Posted 22/09/2011 at 19:07:24
Moyes is in charge of the team side, and is by far the greatest contributor to their success or failure... and that relative success has been achieved despite the board and not because of it. I don't think anyone would consider the board's contribution to be comparable to Moyes's in football terms, otherwise they would've worked similar magic with Smith.
Despite all the sentiment in the world, the net spends illustrate that this club has been very poor in providing funds for the manager.... that is both in real terms and in relation to turnover. This is indisputable, and not speculative.
Despite having a zero net spend over the past 6 years overall, we're still skint and having to sell to survive (The Keioc site and TW holds several articles and reports outlining all the stats). Again, many clubs have also completely managed to redevelop their stadia on lower income... and still provide their managers with greater funds. They have had a redevelopment strategy and have delivered. Many of these clubs have completely changed their club's status during the period that EFC have stood still.
Taken in isolation, the missed opportunity of the KD alone should've been enough for this lot to have to walk. I attended all the AGMs preceding and following this debacle, and no satisfactory reason was ever given for its demise. The club clammed up and wouldn't/couldn't respond to all the questions posed by shareholders demanding answers. The board couldn't blame anyone else (which they've tried for every other mishap they've been involved with) because they knew the other parties would've leapt on it, as some were fuming at the way they had been let down by the club.... so silence prevailed.
There is enough information about to show how the whole scheme failed following boardroom power struggles. This was a catastrophic failure and dereliction of duty to deliver the major project that would've completely changed the whole dynamic of the club, in every respect! Again, not speculation (The stadium does not exist)......
Then we had DK.... the Hobson's choice ballot, and the multiple lies that supported it ? all since substantiated at the public inquiry (all in the public domain). It was demonstrated that none of this was ever in the club's best interests.... it was also demonstrated that the club had never done a thorough examination of all the redevelopment options..... another complete dereliction of duty tied in with a complete act of deception of the fans throughout.
Luckily Moyes has been able to fashion sides with only a fraction of the funds available to similar sized clubs (and even smaller clubs)..... and this has papered over the issues. But, put the whole lot together.... and to say it's just because they are skint doesn't really carry it.
40 Posted 22/09/2011 at 20:02:54
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2 Posted 17/09/2011 at 23:40:50
1. Not getting a new stadium during early Premier League years.
2. Kings Dock. Badly missed out.
3. 2005 Champions League failure, whoever you blame.
4. 2007-09: good years for Everton... Europe and Cup Final but we never built on it.
5. I said it at the time that we would look back on 2006-2009 as the recent glory years unless we get investment and it looks to be true.