Everton prepare for pivotal week on and off pitch after spark of defiance fades

And yet… there are sufficient gaps in the narrative to suggest we can (and should) retain hope for a brighter future, a resurrection, even before we have actually died and fufilled these prophecies of doom.

As I have said elsewhere on TW, reports of our (imminent) death have been much exaggerated.

The best thing for the club is to win matches and gain points. The team needs to pull some results from somewhere, we likely won't get all our points back, 4-5 maybe, so will still need to put points on the board.

It will be a massive week either way.

3 points from Palace, 6 from the Premier League would be a good week.
COYB!!!

Only two points back I can believe.

To be announced on Monday... not so much.

Rant Over!

We fucking got stitched up with a points deduction and, if we don’t get them all back, then the fans and playing staff should make sure no more of our games get finished. It’s time to really turn the heat up on those fuckers.

Meanwhile, City sign our young stars for pigeon shit and the show goes on..........

The summary is about right regarding Club mismanagement and the light touch regulatory Premier League ,forced to play catch up, is about right.

There will be many pivotal weeks ahead as Everton are giving enough to limp on with and avoid relegation..The ownership issue will drag on a lot longer that the current 5 months wait and Everton will not be taken over by 777 Partners ,even if they last that long, which is doubtful.

In view of being refered to a second commission imo the Premier League under pressure definitely has to make a point deduction on this appeal.Most likely to be 2 points on appeal, but I hope it is 4 points.But that would make 4 points the penalty result of the second Commission.It would take the August switch in rules to make that plausible. .It is going to take the Clubs of the Premier League to close ranks to get to that result.

Any article with the line 'Barring the return of 10 points – which seems unlikely given Everton admitted to breaching PSR by £9.7m at October’s hearing' is not creditable.

If the Commissions hearing was corrupted by Masters, relevant mitigating circumstances were thrown out incorrectly and the punishment did not fit the crime there is every reason for the 10 pts to be re-instated.

These type of articles can be there to justify a Premier League ruling and are just more propaganda - in my opinion.

I hope the KC has exposed the lack of compliance and transparency of Masters and his cronies.

Man City have got away with flaunting the rules for 15 years. This must be a key issue to expose the double standards of the so-called FFP and interpretation of unfair sporting advantage.

Praying for a good outcome for Everton FC and a clearer picture of when and if Everton can be in calmer waters.
UTFTs!

Why has it taken so long for the results of the appeal to be made known? We still don't know do we?

The answer is that the Premier League needed time so that their chosen outcome would most likely be fulfilled, ie, see how everyone around us got on last weekend and how we do against Palace before deciding what they would give us back.

The outcome at the end of the season, they hope, will fit whatever they wish it to be. If it doesn't work out, they will continue next season on their preferred outcome.

Sounds reasonable (as far as Masters & Co are concerned). A short or a long game can achieve the desired result, and all without any obvious (provable) corruption coming to light.

We remain at their mercy. It is whatever they want in the long run.

Of course, my thoughts could be miles wide of the mark.

Expect it tomorrow !!

It doesn't have to be true but it might cause them to rethink the matter, not that we would believe they could influence an "independent" panel.

I couldn't agree more. We win tonight and the Appeal Board add on 3 pts to the deduction amount they decided on.

It is where I am today with my thinking.

I think that they have decided on the outcome but have delayed the announcement simply to avoid adverse publicity at this game.

Lots of people are convincing themselves that the Premier League might give us a couple of points back but that would need a huge U-turn from them, and I just don't see them backing down. A couple of points might be deemed enough of a token gesture to placate most fans and show that the Premier League are not the bad guys.

They know we can be slapped with another deduction in a few months. I don't trust them an inch. They have us over a barrel, delaying the takeover, delaying the announcement and they still have another potential deduction to hit us with.

They have all the Aces.

This alone is making a complete contradiction, out of the very reason why the profitability & sustainable laws were brought in, in the first place imo.

It's not corruption, but it's definitely a case of the weak getting crushed whilst the strong grow stronger.

The very fact that they changed the rules so that stadium costs were no longer included undermines a business from attempting to make the steps needed to increase revenue and ensure future profitability.

It's self-contradictory.

The fact we have a televised game tonight probably has also impacted the timing.

With regard to 777 Partners, let's hope they don't get the go ahead!

Moshiri will then have to continue to fund the club until a better buyer comes along. It wouldn't make sense for Moshiri to seek administration.

But as regards them giving us a couple of pts back I will be furious if that happens.
Our KC should be able to drive a coach and horses through the IC's initial conclusions as they were so badly flawed.

I am of the thought all pts back or legal action.

My own complaint is this deduction has distracted the actual poor performances from the team. We have played about 12 games since, that gives a chance of 36 points and we have got 15.

Yes, that would have put us up around 12th but that gives a false impression of the poor squad we have.

Tonight's game should not have been a must-win game – it should have been just another game where we expected a win.

Rant over. Time for my medication and go walk in the river till my hat floats, only problem: the river is frozen… maybe I will just go ice skating.

Also, and I know it was a slightly different kettle of eggs, but the 12-deduction for Spurs was halved to 6 points on appeal, so something similar is not entirely out of the question in my view.

Just want the whole shambles of ownership and point deductions sorted so we can, somewhat, move on.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=K13hH0pJx5s

The mid-February date was newspaper talk. It didn't come from the Premier League nor the club as far as I'm aware.

I'm in the same boat as you as to who actually decided how many points were deducted. Will someone better read on this, clear this point up.

We will survive this season, regardless of what they do. A bigger question is do we really wont to play in this league? We are on survival mode each season as it's a competition in name only.

As things stand, we are tied into it because of the money but, unless they do away with this affordability lark, we will in a headlock for a long time.

It does highlight part of the problem which is the lack of transparency of the whole murky mess that is the Premier League. When they don't allow any associated documentation to be published with these "trials", we and the papers just make up our own stories.

That's why they don't want an independent regulator (and will probably succeed in that).

Here you go, Ray, this should clear it up: Link

TL;DR It was an independent commission, not the Premier League

When did they do that?

I feel sure that I read that there were no hard and fast rules for punishing clubs at the time Everton were charged so they either ‘invented’ some or imported them from the EFL and also suggested to the independent commission that 12 points would be their preferred punishment. The whole thing appears to have been made up on the hoof and rushed in for reasons that have been widely discussed on here. Yes, the Government Regulator.

we're still waiting mostly due to the oily PR bullshit that dominates above all else.

Now that we've passed the looks too close to the match/possible influence deadline, the next step will be to disguise that decision by leaving it a few more days. Expect Thursday.

An alternative is a "leak" from late tonight onwards. Unprovable, but mysteriously turns out to be accurate later.

There were exceptional events that we could not have been expected to forsee.
Their answer was 'tough thats business for you' and didnt allow us anything!
Its no wonder we appealed, whether it will do us any good remains to be seen.

I appreciate that but these things generally have timetables with fairly generous leeway built into them.

I'd have thought the Appeals panel will have had 7/14 days to reach a conclusion, draft a report and present it to both parties. No doubt Everton and the PL will also have been given an opportunity to ask for changes to the report if, for example, they felt the wording didn't accurately reflect their arguements.

Not satisfactory I accept but that tends to be the nature of the beast.

Let's hope tonight's result gives us more reason to be cheerful!

UTFT!

I also think that the Premier League are looking for a face-saving solution that gets them off the hook along with Man City and Chelsea and every club starting afresh when they announce the new rules later in the year.

Some of this might be wishful thinking by me but it is also feasible to believe.

I’m getting ready to go the match, and hope that with the team having had nine days rest since the City game, then we might play with a bit more energy tonight, because the only thing that really concerns me (other than 777) is that our players have been looking tired.

The whole mess will be looked at and changes made but we can be sure that it will be too late for us but just right for some others and that should also open a truly legal case for Everton to pursue, if the laws are that poor they need change then should they have been implemented at all, have we been allowed "natural justice"?

Stadium costs have always not been included.

Typical of Everton to go so quiet. Get on the front foot, get the answer, take the medicine and get on with it ffs

I was initially referring to the ‘formula' for deciding how many points we would get docked, the number of points docked per million pounds over, which was (I think) borrowed from the EFL because the Premier League didn't have a formula of their own.

Ergo, made on the hoof as they went along.

Unlikely to hear anything this month

How long does it take to type "The Appeal was not successful"?

Wish they'd put me out of my misery and just get on with it.

Richard Jolly of The Independent confirms further delay in the takeover.

So basically what they may be asking for is the sale of Brennan Johnson to be “backdated” to before 30 June. How funny is that? They didn't sell him because they wanted more money for him, so asking for the sale to be backdated is just a joke.

We might as well have said that Richarlison was worth £80M, but we only got £60M, so can we include the extra £20M in our accounts?

The club probably communicate via fax and, since Bill died, no one has thought to add paper to it so they're all there sitting around wondering why it keeps ringing but no communications are forthcoming.

Won't be announced tomorrow either.

Possibly Thursday but my money would be on Friday.

Sell cheap and stay out of trouble, or wait until the deadline has passed and make a lot more money on the transfer, even if getting more profit is somehow going to impede on your sustainability levels🤦‍♂️

https://inews.co.uk/sport/football/nottingham-forest-points-deduction-premier-league-rivals-2914672

This is where the rules get iffy. The intent is to have clubs manage there finances within sustainable limits, but the application of those rules can cost money and prevent that.

They'll lose, but it's a decent mitigation. We had a similar mitigation with Richarlison but we instead went with Gylfi's mental health.

Does anyone know if we have now changed our accounting treatment of loans so that we can now retrospectively capitalise them against the stadium? If so, you'd expect some points coming back.

Nottingham Forest would have an argument if they had reigned in their spending between the PSR deadline date of 30 June 2023 and selling Brennan Johnson on transfer deadline day 1 September 2023. But they didn't.

In between those dates, they signed 9 more players including Ibrahim Sangaré, Anthony Erlanga, Chris Wood, Andrew Omobamidele and Murillo for a total of £103.87M. As well as selling Johnson they also brought in £13.36M in that time, so they have still increased their net transfer spend even including the sale of Johnson (which they want to count to the previous season's PSR figure as they are already way over on that).

What is more, even after getting charged, they spent the cash again in the January window, albeit on a much smaller scale this time.

As such, I would be stunned if their argument was accepted when looked against their continued transfer activity since the PSR deadline date, and I really cannot see what their defence could possibly be.

God above, man, take your time!

This is taking so long, they need to pitch a tent and sell tickets! Circus!

Even if we get some points back we will get more deducted next season and probably the season afterwards, we are in a right fucking mess.

I would say Forest are in more trouble than us.

If our appeal fails, Forest face a 15 points deduction if their hearing uses the same formula applied to us.

It seems to me wishful thinking that the punishment for the second breach would change if the appeal fails.

I think, once that situation is clarified, Dyche will respond appropriately, ie, if we lose more points, he will loosen the shackles out of necessity as seemed to be the case last time.

If it remains somewhere around 10 points, then I think it will be more of the same on the basis that the teams with the worst defence, generally speaking, are the ones that are more likely to go down.

How we are playing is directly attributed to the injuries in the squad and feeling the need to not throw it away with this many games to go. Holding the line, while not pretty, is a justifiable tactic at this stage.

We will find out soon enough – and the second commission does have a bearing on the appeal and will be less of a punishment, because of the period it covers, which crosses with the previous period.

Even if we get all 10 points back ("as if" again!) we're still rats in a bag amongst the hopeless.

I just wish there was a credible club out there who "always get it right" that others, like us, could contact in a bid to obtain assistance to rectify the catastrophe inflicted on us for decades.

But there isn't – and never was. The notion is patent nonsense, obviously, except to Kenwright fans.

Yes, we won four on the bounce after they took away 10 of the points the team had already won, but it came in the month of December, when the games come thick and fast.

An absolutely disgusting decision was conjoined up by Oliver and Atwell to stop us in our tracks at Spurs, then a linesman's decision turned the game in Man City's favour, and then suddenly the wind in our sails was gone.

We then had injuries that a very small squad found hard to cope with, and I don't believe we have regained our energy levels, and once again this is not being helped by the Premier League dragging out their decision, which is obviously affecting a squad that look mentally tired.

Monday was very poor, way too conservative, and we looked like a team with no real method, but anyone who thinks that waiting for this decision, isn't affecting the squad, is being very unfair imo.

We really, truly are a club on the precipice of dropping out of the Premier League.

Now where's the bloody decision on these damned points?!

Any speculation I have made on the appeal or future is based on what I hope will be a manageable outcome and Everton will survive in the Premier League. I am betting on Everton with its tradition, wide support, new stadium, and pressure on the Premier League being too big to fail. Something I would not do in my normallife.

Didn't Liverpool get away with overspending a few years back and the Premier League said it was okay because of extenuating circumstances (money spent on their stadium)? COYB.

If the appeals panel had found in favour of the Premier League and said the 10-point deduction stays, I doubt the Premier League would wait so long to tell us.

We probably have all 10 points back and the Premier League are just trying to come up with some excuse to save face. Plus keep the relegation battle a bit more interesting for a bit longer…

I always used that "logic" when I was waiting for a reply to a job application. No news was good news. Then the slim brown envelope would drop on the mat.

Let's hope you are right and the majority of the panel want a bigger reduction in points than Masters wants, so they are still negotiating a final figure.

Whatever the outcome, the more worrying aspect is seeing we face a second charge along with Forest, by the time they make their decisions known and then undoubtedly an appeal it could be at the season's end before this is resolved.

But maybe, Paul, they are making it look like they have deliberated long and hard and it's taken the best part of 3 weeks or more to come to a decision that they actually made within days of the hearing finishing.

Let's hope we hear before this weekend's games so everybody affected knows where they stand in relation to our appeal, as this decision doesn't only affect Everton.

He has also accepted an offer from 777 Partners to buy the club yet, as the days go by, they seem less and less likely to get the go-ahead from the Premier League. So what happens if they don't get approval?

What is Moshiri's plan? Will he still put in funds to finish the stadium and support the day-to-day running of the club if 777 Partners pull out?

The fans deserve better and I feel sorry for Colin Chong, who has been thrown in the deep end being made CEO. Yet our owner hides away from telling the fans what's the likelihood of us going into administration if the deal with 777 Partners falls through.

Makes you laugh when they consider themselves Premier league officials… 'Premier' in the dictionary: First in rank or position. More like first in cowardice and backstabbing.

A sensible argument but surely it won't hold water with the Premier League as they refused to acknowledge we sold Richarlison for £20M less as we panicked to balance the books. At least Forest managed to hold out and negotiate a higher price!

Yes, the long delay in the Premier League's decision is totally unacceptable and lends credence to the thought that they will give us back shit as far as points are concerned. I won't hold my breath given the way they run the Premier League.

My beef (one of many) is why no change in the stupid offside rule that allows the game to continue knowing full well it will all be brought back??

Another is that at corner kicks etc defenders can continually clutch and grab offensive players and very rarely is a penalty called. Instead, a gutless referee merely holds the kick being taken whilst he has a quiet word with the players involved but they carry on with it anyway. Why bother talking to the defender (who is generally the culprit) and then do nothing?

Justice was served when Onana score against Palace because Branthwaite was being held mercilessly by a Palace defender but, if Onana hadn't scored, would the inept referee have given a penalty? No chance!!

It'd never involve the media darlings, would it?

I am sick of the Premier League circus and would probably enjoy the Championship more. At least we would win more often. It's been turgid watching Everton the past 3 seasons.