The Accelerating Decline of an English Giant

What an unprecedented disaster of a transfer window. 31 days to sign a couple of players who can score. A gift from the gods of a six-week World Cup break to plan and prepare.

Despite all these golden opportunities to save this club from a massive threat of relegation, these amateurs have actually found a way to weaken us. It was the final explosion of this regime, a supernova of incompetence. The new Everton will emerge from the cloud of gas that remains.

Dyche and his staff must be supported.

Players who are up for the fight must be supported, any player who even thinks about giving less than 100% – go now.

There is still a path to safety, but the actions of this transfer window have turned that rocky path into a mountain climb.

If Dyche and our committed players somehow keep this club in the Premier League, wholesale changes must follow.

Never mind any “lessons have been learnt”, “never again” comments. We've heard it all before.

Wholesale change means Kenwright and this board must go. Nothing less.

It can only be a deliberate act. Nothing else makes sense. This board want us relegated. Otherwise, our DOF would have done all he could to get players in. Players that should have arrived on the 1st of bloody January! Not free agents in the first week of February.

If we cannot compete with Southampton and Bournemouth, then we are finished.

In fact, we were finished when we negligently ignored the near catastrophic relegation warning of last season. We ignored it by being forced to sell Richarlson before the deadline for FFP and selling him for a ridiculously low price and not replacing him. We then started the season playing without a centre-forward for 6 games. What kind of management is that? It's criminal neglect. If I had been Lampard, I would have walked then.

Then we go to Burnley to try and get Cornet and come back with McNeil, who was terrible for Burnley last season. Maupay's purchase was a joke. He plays as a second striker. We don't operate with a second striker – though Dyche may do so going forward.

The purchase of Gueye went on and on for weeks before it was completed. Then we find he's not the player we sold to PSG anymore – quel surprise! Who checks these players out Wasn't it obvious his legs were gone?

Coady and Tarkowski were the sucessess but even they have looked out of sorts as the results have gotten worse. Calvert-Lewin's body is ravaged with injury, He's taped up like a bloody mummy. Particularly around his dodgy shoulder. We'll be lucky to get more than 10 appearances out of him before the end of the season.

The board knew they weren't going to get anyone through the door – bbhence the recall of Simms from loan at Sunderland. He was the insurance against no signings. Going cap in hand and asking for players on the cheap with low wages was always going to be a disaster.

As for Danjuma… what the fuck happened? He was signing, a done deal, a tweet - born ready. Next thing, he's at Spurs. Did someone realise we couldn't afford it. Did someone tip Spurs off??

As for 㿔M for Gallagher. Surely that was just Moonshine for media darlings to report and get us mugs all excited. After all, if he wouldn't sign when Frank was the manager, why on earth would he come now?

I watched David Moyes being interviewed after the West Ham game. He's not a favourite of mine but appeared to me to be genuinely upset at Everton's plight. In hindsight, maybe he knew we were truly screwed and that we are going down. Perhaps he's been told something that explains why we are behaving as we have this transfer window.

Whatever the truth is, I can only see one way of getting rid of this board and owner: Boycott the Arsenal game. Let's show them our support can no longer be taken for granted. They may be the custodians but we are the blue blood that flows through Everton – its life force – and we have had enough. So stay away from the Arsenal game. Stand outside if you must but don't give the board the satisfaction of seeing their neglect ignored by entering the ground.

NSNOW
Everton Forever.
Kenwright & Moshiri NEVER!!

One very angry and totally pissed-off Evertonian of 60 years standing.

He will eventually throw in the towel once we are languishing in the Championship with massive debts and the Everton Stadium albatross at Bramley-Moore Dock weighing us further down.

The assured relaxed demeanour for interviews is the same as any politician lying their way to power or corporate CEO reassuring the workforce that their jobs are safe before pinching the pension pot or/and cashing the business in.

Smooth but flawed.

Our owner and board genuinely believe that they are a perfect organisation and that the fans and coaches are the problem. Delusional? Of course in part but many football clubs and companies go down the pan thinking this.

Go down or stay up? I just don't know but my sympathies are absolutely with Sean Dyche. He can't win whatever he does, he's a brave man and deserves better.

My own feeling is that the players and fans have one foot in the Championship already and the press can see that and are already feeding on it.

One thing that needs to be stated though and that we need to recognise is that we fans have eventually been complicit in this decline and to deny this is as delusional as Blue Bill and his organ grinder. Oh yes, Nil Satis Nisi Optimum, the meaningless and ridiculous millstone around the neck of the club.

For me. it's up The Toffees whatever happens. The only thing that matters now is what happens from now on. Our 'istory is totally irrelevant.

I agree wholeheartedly about the board, shambolic, and our Director of Football need to provide some answers along with our Director of Communication.

The simple truth of this transfer window has been that players, even no-mark players, don't want to come to the club as it is. You can't sack the board, they ‘own' the business but we can get them to understand their position in dragging our club down.

All that is important for the next four games is to get behind Sean and the team. I expect nothing from the first two, save the chance to get used to the new systems. The fight back, if we can muster one, starts at home to Leeds.

Hopefully this disgusting debacle we have witnessed this transfer window will push any pro Board supporters firmly into the “out” campaign.

Like many, I am thoroughly disgusted in this so-called Board, I must say in Sharp even more than the other incompetents.

We are where we are and all the shouting will not change it.
Dyche must feel like he's been stabbed in the back this morning. He's on a no-win situation which I hope all supporters recognise

Our only focus now has to be on total, unconditional support for the management team and the wasters of players who helped put us here.

Supporters should act as if we have no Board whatsoever and ignore anything and everything that comes out of their lying mouths.

If a Board member risks his life – apparently – and turns up at a match, then protest is correct. If, however, the cowards keep away from our club, then no protest and everything channeled into supporting the team.

We must get behind Dyche and the team and stick two fingers up to the idiots running the mad house!!!

💙💙💙💙

Couldn't we have got uncle Carlo to loan us some extras? Surely, Everton Football Club as a brand is still attractive to players if only to sharpen their skills before moving on? Incredible level of incompetence.

Another thing: the Premier League Profitability & Sustainability rules are ridiculous and corrupt. How teams like Chelsea, Arsenal, etc can get away with spending obscene amounts of money, while another team (Everton) goes around with a begging bowl in the same league is beyond my comprehension.

I have never before critiqued the owner and board or called for their resignations, but they need to step down now if they have any sense of accountability or shame. And I mean today! Moshiri has been an unmitigated disaster for this club – he needs to sell up and leave.

I shudder to think what might have happened if we had actually signed Bielsa instead of Dyche! We can all only hope and pray that Sean Dyche does not throw in the towel (it would be easy to do so) and can cajole, theaten, motivate this motley group of players to achieve play out of their skins and achieve safety. If he does that, it would rank amongst the great managerial achievements in football.

What have they done to our football club?

We need to hear the official statement on why there were no incoming players.

Especially when the Board (not the Club – that's ours) use pictures of the pyro we're not allowed to use and "the Goodison Gang" for their own PR.

How about a new motto:

"THE BOARD DON'T CARE BUT WE DO – UTFT" on as many banners as you like…

I honestly can't believe we can be so useless, so negligent, so disastrous. And yet I've been a fan across the last 35+ years so actually, it all makes sense. It all ladders up to this.

It's hollow, I feel numb and it's disgusting that custodians of our club can preside over something we love with such disdain.

I suppose it's a bit like our current government killing our NHS?

In both situations, it feels like there's nothing we, the common people, can do about it. Just accept it and make the best of it.

But I hate them all.

Chelsea and Arsenal spend loads more than us because they generate a lot more revenue by, for example, finishing higher up the league, progressing further in the cups, playing in Europe, being on the telly more, and generally being a lot more attractive to sponsors and corporate partners.

Yet we still pay our players top whack on long contracts.
And Moshiri would love to sell up, I'm sure, but who's going to buy when you don't know if you're getting a big club in the world's richest league (maybe half a billion?) or an EFL Championship club with financial problems galore (less than 𧴜M?).

Finally, do we believe all our players have relegation clauses in their contracts stating a reduction in wages whilst not in the Premier League? I doubt it!

We need to do what do what our neighbours did

There was no intention to spend money this transfer window, only to cash in players they could. Yes, if a bargain loanee was possible, they would have a punt. Demand players mentioned were clickbait or fabricated interest to appease fans.

So what is their conclusion of this transfer window? Good business was finally done regarding Gordon. The existing players are sufficient for Premier League survival. Players who, when brought in by Thelwell, will perform to their true potential under Dyche, especially the ones that played under him before.

Everton with Calvert-Lewin now fit and with Simms as back-up (an upgrade on Rondon) have sufficient forwards. Lampard, who has gone, proved not to have the right formula of play.

Dyche has the right idea, leaving early and leaving the transfer business to us professionals, who have ticked off another box on the agreement with the Premier League's Profit and Sustainability Committee. The only paymasters they are interested in. The fans coming second...

Roll on the Summer and we can realise further value in players and replenish with cheaper options for the manager.

I know it is a load of bollocks, but that is the current thinking at Everton this morning. The manager is beginning to wonder but reassured himself he has a contract. The players are happy with no competition. Quite a few will be planning their exit.

Yes, a good transfer window, as Bill phones Denise, with his bathrobe on, with his boiled egg in front of him. "Oh, you are wonderful" is the reply. Moshiri is in Monaco watching Italian TV thinking they all get it and will fix it.

Meanwhile, we struggle on the pitch and will strive to limp over the line, playing at the stadium we love that has hardly been changed in decades.

The club hasn't – and that is down to ownership and management at the top.

Others moved on and reinvented themselves or built on their heritage rather than living in it.

To use Only Fools and Horses, we have become the Uncle Albert of top clubs reminiscing about during the war.

Well, how about getting this club back on the front foot and ready for the next war? Starting on Saturday…

"If there is to be a chance that Everton avoid the drop again, it will be down to Dyche being able to wring every last drop from the team he inherited and the supporters once more doing everything they can to save their club. So, back the manager. Back the team with all you've got. Then force change at the top once the dust of the season has settled, whichever way things pan out."

Agree. We'll continue to use ToffeeWeb to vent our spleen, express our outrage.

But, for the rest of the season, that all counts for little. We can't change things in terms of signings (only the scraps of free agents remain?). We can't change who owns the club (no change of ownership will happen soon?). We can't change who runs the club (Moshiri, not us, will decide who makes the big calls, whether that is him or Bill and the board). We can't change how "they" run the club, on-pitch and off-pitch. For the rest of the season.

So, for the rest of the season, we can only sit back and see what the denouement will be. We are currently powerless.

Dyche – do your best.

Until yesterday afternoon, I didn't think we were going to be relegated. I thought reinforcements were a certainty and we would get through the season and maintain our Premier League status.

However, this changed for me when Sulemana chose Southampton over Everton. Southampton over Everton? In the past, players have chosen Everton over Arsenal, Man Utd and even Liverpool. Chelsea and Man City were no competition once a player heard Everton were in the frame. Rats leave a sinking ship and definitely don't board one.

I never thought I'd see our Everton die a slow and humiliating public death like this. The owner is playing his fiddle and the faithful are seeing their beloved club burn and crumble before them.

Tony @3. brilliant, brilliant post... a supernova of incompetence indeed. Kenwright will look back with fondness to when he was accused simply of failure or mediocrity.

It's strangely touching to read so many intelligent posts to know there are so many good and passionate Evertonians out there. I think it may have been (apologies if I'm wrong) Andy Crooks who said "the circus is on fire" last week. It made me laugh at its accuracy.

Like Lyndon says about the board, there is nothing for them to say now. Don't give them the credibility of listening or digesting any nonsense they spout.

I also would like to say well done for Lyndon to throw the term "toxic" back at them, the fantastic support of tens of thousands of Evertonians have been ignored for the behaviour of a few arseholes recently.

It's not us who are toxic.

It feels like the perfect storm is coming to hit us: no signings, relegation, owner who has abdicated but cannot sell, stadium to not finish construction, financial irregularities, accusations of dodgy backers, followed by a points deduction and no promotion straight back up.

I know it sounds pessimistic and Dyche may pull a rabbit out of the hat, but after sitting there last night in front of the TV with phone and iPad awaiting signings, how can I feel any different?

All those years of support from standing on a ladder behind the semi-circle behind the Gwladys Street goal as a little lad to the modern-day antisceptic Sky era wasted.

I could weep.

So damming, but we have had to put up with these self-serving damaging bastards for a long time now. It's that bad that even the man that kept on giving has finally had enough.

If Dyche is smart, he'll create a siege mentality, keep the group as close as possible, and distance them all from anything to do with the running of the club. The players will get the growing sense that we are behind Dyche and Dyche himself will have a strong sense that, in a way, he's in a no-lose position.

In that way, we may find that the supporters, players and manager form a triumvirate ostensibly in opposition to the club, even if the manager and players can't protest in their own way. The club and its supporters are polarised. They can only be reunited by changes in the boardroom. The players, given the choice, would naturally side with the supporters over the club.

This is what I'm hoping sets the tone for the remainder of the season. While Southampton, Bournemouth and the other strugglers are patting themselves on the backs with new-found confidence, Sean Dyche is waterboarding Everton's players and gearing up for a war of attrition for the remainder of the season.

We supporters, those of us who attend, will be up for the challenge of turning Goodsion as well as whatever ground we travel to into a snarling nest of hostility towards our opposition. I'm personally ready to get behind the team and the manager with everything and go down as Dogs of War, not the meek sentimentalists that Kenwright will have us be.

Come on, Everton. Once more unto the breach.

The problem is that the hierarchy that manages Everton also think it is massive: 'Too big to fail', taking incompetent decisions believing there are no consequences.

I have often dealt with people in companies who had this arrogance about them, even where the workers have queried what is going on. The result was a closing down job or a takeover. In Everton's case, they managed to reverse the takeover, having targeted the right takeover. But it inevitably ends as it should end.

Make no mistake: Kenwright & Co have to go for Everton to survive.

Moshiri been only a stooge for Usmanov's (or Putin's) blood-money, and not even a good one in that, Kenwright's leadership has been an absolute disaster.

His paw marks are all over the disastrous footballing decisions over the years. What is telling about the strength of EFC as an institution is that it has taken so long to bring it down to ruin.

The future is obviously more interesting than this sad and not-yet-over story of demise. The current owners are certain to milk any remaining assets and financial consequences can be imagined. Goodison Park being auctioned off to developers while the new stadium is just too much for a failed club.

The only reasonable conclusion is that Liverpool will pick up Bramley-Moore Dock and "new" EFC will find a home somewhere else. Eventually, the stench of failure will evaporate and a Ryan Reynolds or a local "tycoon" will pick up the pieces and steady the ship.

Where EFC will be playing by that time remains to be seen. Maybe the buffoons of FIFA have managed to ruin football as a sport by then.

On a personal level, love for the club has survived all these years but the negativity it has brought made me realize that it is sometimes easier to look away. And keep looking away.

Hopefully Dyche will give us a good farewell and, on a positive note, I do hope that none of the directors is suicidal enough to attend even one match, being only losers this club has.

Bear-pit atmosphere to rally the players and manager.

Simmering contempt for the owner and board.

Once we're safe or down, give it both barrels to the owner and board.

I really liked Frank Lampard, he came across as intelligent, likeable, realistic and as someone with a vision of where he wanted to take a club to success, just the kind of manager I'd like to see in charge of a successful Everton. However, for whatever reasons – which may or may not have been his fault – he did not prove up to the job.

This was pretty clear before the World Cup took place, and this would have been the best time to replace him if that was what was required; 6 weeks for a new manager to get to know the squad, get his own training and tactical team in place and begin targeting players both for sale and for purchase in January.

Next best would have been at the beginning of the transfer window with the immediate appointment of a new manager to allow total focus on transfer activity in line with a new vision.

Third best, and we're getting pretty low on the scale here, was after the transfer window. Incoming players would have seen a club which was sticking by a manager who was himself an inspiring figure.

Worst, was just before the end of the transfer window. This showed players the club was in complete disarray, that it did not have a manager who had a clue about how the club operated, who had no idea whether he was joining a high-skill, fast tempo club, a backs-to-the-wall "Alamo every week" defensive setup (a sort of KITAP1 on steroids), or anything else for that matter.

In my view, Dyche realised that the last thing he needed was new players who had come only because they saw an easy ride and a big paycheck at the end of their careers. Bielsa probably had much the same idea – you work with what you now have and avoid the bloated egos of overpriced nonentities, except Bielsa saw that as much if not most of the current first team.

Dyche's first objective should be to get the board banned from attending training, attending matches or meeting any of the players, and have them also prohibited from any media contact.

His second (which pictures on Facebook suggest he's started) is to get the players to run and run, and then to run more and then to run further and back again, twice. He should implement a system of fines for backwards and sideways passing, and start showing them movies about survival in difficult times and circumstances. Anyone not measuring up after suitable mentoring should be sent home and barred from contact.

Napoleon said that, in war, the morale to the material counts as three to one. Since no-one dies in football, I'd estimate it's more like 5 to 1.

He also said that morale and public opinion are half the battle, and we know that the crowd can be the difference between winning and losing, and that the Goodison crowd will get behind the team after something as trivial as a really solid winning tackle and be demoralised by a player obviously bottling it.

For those of you not familiar with this totemic example of British cinema, it is about a criminal gang trying to infiltrate a maternity ward and rob them of their contraceptive pills. (Christopher Nolan this is not).

This dastardly (and implausible) plan includes one of the gang posing as a female nurse. The plan fails naturally.

I can draw parallels between this film and our board with people posing and pretending to be something which they are not and eventually failing.

Kenwright features as a reporter and proves that he couldn't really act which is perhaps why a large part of our fanbase haven't liked him since the start and the rest, like Barbara Windsor in the film, have cottoned on to what a fraud he is.

They've already shown themselves to be cowards by trying to shift the blame onto the fans and will not be willing to face the outpouring of anger that they will inevitably face from the home supporters.

Hopefully this could well signal the beginning of the end for this sorry bunch. The relationship between them and the fans is fractured beyond repair. They will never be trusted again and supporters will be only too willing to remind them of the fact.

Nobody can continue to work in such an atmosphere of constant vilification so I suspect we will begin to see some changes occur as the season progresses. What they will be and how long it will take is anybody's guess but I'm convinced it will begin to happen.

I didn't realise we'd come that close!

Have we any accountants on here that could come up with the reason why the owner or chairman would want this club to fail? I've said for a while that someone wants us to fail but I don't know why.

Everton lurching into 'deep crisis' after not making a single January signing

Their objective is self-interest and they have built up a structure of employees with similar values.They actually have increased their hold on the club by coming under the remit of the Premier League Profit and Sustainability Rules giving them control of player expenditure, sacrificing performance by selling off anything of value to sustain the structure.

They where never interested in putting a plan in place to win anything, only Premier League survival and the funds to sustain them. Of course they wanted to win something, but it was more based on luck than good planned practise.

That is the thinking today a new Manager with new formula to get the makeshift players, suiting their self-preservation finances, largely assembled by them, arranged into a team to maintain the status quo, staying in the Premier League.

Such a Culture will eventually insure they don't. Any attempt to bring in a winning culture is a threat to them was and will be resisted.

Thanks for that. I have no confidence in my team and club as a going entity. The thought of supporting this club, and the board and owner is getting harder to do. If Everton stay up, then the conmen stay another season, that's not right.

Everton are an absolute mess. Every time it looks like they have sunk to their lowest point, they somehow find a way to showcase another level of ineptitude.

To sell one of their few assets, Anthony Gordon, to Newcastle United for 㿔 million without an immediate replacement lined up is an epic failure of leadership from the top, impacting on transfer strategy.

It would be incomprehensible at the best of times. If the club was in mid-table pushing towards the top six you would scarcely believe they would self-inflict such damage to their ambitions. To do that when the team is 19th and in dire need of quality to avoid relegation defies belief.

If the club fails to recover and goes down everyone involved in this almighty cock-up - from majority shareholder Farhad Moshiri to the boardroom executives Bill Kenwright, chief executive Denise Barrett-Baxendale and sporting director Kevin Thelwell - will be held responsible.

There ought to be a full and frank explanation as to how and why Everton are the only club fighting relegation who have come out of the transfer window with a weaker squad, otherwise positions are untenable.

I called them the worst run club in the country on Monday Night Football ten days ago. Some people disagreed. I have been proven right.

We can all accept the club was hampered by financial restraints and the fact Everton are an unattractive destination at the moment, but forget the fact they had no new faces on the morning of February 1. It was staggering they had no deals in place by January 1, when the side was already in deep trouble and Frank Lampard was on borrowed time. What was going on between September 1 and the opening of the transfer window? Why was Moshiri promising a new striker if no guarantee could be made? Was Thelwell working with his hands tied behind his back, or is he simply another misjudged appointment, unable to get deals over the line?

There will be no hiding place when the fans gather at Goodison Park on Saturday demanding answers.

Since the last home game I have felt the current Everton regime has reached the point of no return. Over the last few years my belief has been that the ultimate responsibility lies with Moshiri. He is the one who appoints board members and sporting directors and is supposed to be deferring key responsibilities within the organisation.

We have seen countless examples of him failing to respect any kind of structure, too often acting like he is the sporting director when it comes to approaching and interviewing managers. There is no way ex-sporting director Marcel Brands suggested Carlo Ancelotti or Rafael Benitez should be Everton manager. Equally, there is no way Thelwell was compiling a list of possible replacements for Lampard with Marcelo Bielsa's name on the list, let alone top of it.

Everton have proved me right – they are the worst run club in the country

An owner hiring key personnel only to go down a different path is the recipe for the kind of dysfunction which has contaminated Everton for seven years. Every time decisions backfire - and almost all of them have since 2016 - it feels like someone within the club is blaming someone else. Moshiri claimed in an interview this week he is not responsible for buying players. That inevitably leads to Thelwell's door, and before him his predecessors Brands and Steve Walsh. There is never any collective responsibility.

That also overlooks how much external influence there has been with recruitment decisions.

It is no surprise Everton fans have been asking who the real power brokers at the club are whenever they read about Moshiri's former business associate, Alisher Usmanov, apparently hovering in the background when previous managerial decisions were taken, despite his status being only as a sponsor

Since Usmanov was sanctioned in the wake of the clampdown on Russian-backed oligarchs, Everton's financial problems have become a source of greater focus and it is deeply worrying as to what the future holds unless Moshiri's search for investment is successful.

But any sympathy I had for fellow board members such as Kenwright, Barrett-Baxendale and most recently Thelwell has gradually evaporated because there is a choice for them in the situation Everton are in. If they feel they are being unfairly held accountable they ought to use their influence to communicate to the supporters exactly how and why the club is in its current state. If they really feel they are blameless and their presence has prevented a full-scale descent into chaos, perhaps it is time to take stock, look at the carnage around them and ask if their presence is a help or hindrance?

Either they are guilty of underplaying their influence, or self-interest has overtaken the broader needs of the club. Everyone can see the enduring involvement of chairman Kenwright at Everton is causing further division among the fanbase. History will be unforgiving if the board members are not on the right side of it. Given the gravity of Everton's situation, if the root of the problem is elsewhere and they are being wrongly blamed, some of them should have left on a matter of principle years ago.

Instead, the perception is the board took a stance against their own fans when they issued a statement before the last home game suggesting executives did not feel safe attending Goodison. Every Evertonian I know felt unfairly branded amid accusations of protests being taken too far. That has created a greater wedge and it is difficult to see how that will be fixed.

Seven years of mayhem threatens to end in the ultimate calamity
Everton did at least make one January acquisition in the form of Sean Dyche. For all the need and enthusiasm for new players on deadline day, nobody is more important than the manager.

I think Dyche is a good appointment and the right fit for Everton, the move for Bielsa making no sense given the demanding style of football he wants would have taken months to fine tune. Moshiri is fortunate that Bielsa is such a man of principle he could refuse whatever financial incentives were offered.

Dyche will give the supporters what they demand with a team in his image; hard-working, no-nonsense, trying to simplify the game to maximise the full potential of the squad.

Some managers can be unfairly branded because there is nothing exotic about them and what you see is what you get. Dyche comes into that category. He deserves respect for his amazing work at Burnley and there was no-one available better equipped than him to get Everton out of trouble.

Whether he succeeds or fails, he deserves at least 18 months in the job, either rebuilding in the Premier League this summer or entrusted to get Everton back into it.

Dyche could not have had a tougher start to his Goodison career, but the first 48 hours have given him one advantage.

If Everton stay up, it will be almost entirely thanks to his management of a limited, unbalanced squad. If they go down, it will have almost nothing to do with him as seven years of mayhem threatens to end in the ultimate calamity.

He should have named Sharp as a member of the board instead of Thelwell who is not a member of the board.

As I sit here today too depressed to write anything meaningful, I have to compliment you on another excellent expose of the frauds that claim to be owners and directors of one of the top footballing institutions in the world — or at least it was until one egotistical fraudster got his hands on the tiller.

But for Moyes, we would have been relegated long ago; let's hope Dyche can manage the seemingly impossible too.

Okay, he probably got a decent contract offer. But outside of that, what could it possibly be?

Are you really trying to tell us that some people did not think Everton was the worst run club in the country? I defy you to find such a person (apart from Kenwright).

Does he help sign players? Nope.

Does he help choose the managers and club style? Nope.

Does he ensure we have goal threat rather than six centre-halves on the books? …

Absolute joke.

I'm expecting "bankruptcy and liquidation" of Everton FC.

We now have a competent manager. That cannot be overstated. It is often the case that players 'down tools' when they are unhappy with things, and get a manager the bullet.

Here, we had in my view the more unusual situation of the manager downing tools. Lampard has been waiting for his blessed release for weeks, becoming more and more uninterested with the job. Offering virtually bugger all, in the hope this would accelerate his sacking.

And with an owner who gave a rats arse about Everton, that would have worked. But the last thing Moshiri wants to do is think about Everton, Just like Frank, he just wants out.

So let's just all hold our nose and cheer on Dyche and the players until him and his board foxtrot Oscar.

For years, I have droned on that, in the Everton situation, the real problem is the boardroom. Moshiri has lost interest, he has misspent a fortune.

If as seems obvious, his football acumen is limited, then one would have expected him to hire a proper professional to advise him. Instead he relied on Boys Pen Bill. The result of this decision is the mess we are witnessing over the season.

I wish Mr Dyche well, but fear he is another victim of an incompetent owner and a useless board of directors. If Dyche can get Everton to score, he will prove his worth. In fact, he will be manager of the season.

The defence lacks pace, the wingbacks are neither competent defenders nor surrogate wingers. Gueye, at his best, was a decent breaker up of play, but rarely able to be creative.

I could go on but all the readers know the few strengths of all our players and their many weaknesses. They know our tactical limitations and they know how little spirit for the relegation fight these players have shown.

I hope Dyche can change things, I will salute him if he gets us to 17th place, but I wouldn't bet on it and I wouldn't blame him if he doesn't manage it.

A desperate cry: COYB.

Over the past week or so, I have read many ToffeeWeb articles and posts. Before I read your article, I had already decided for my own sanity, to no longer acknowledge that shambolic group of misfits, referred to as the Everton Board. Life is too short.

I already feel better. I am going to do the only thing I can, and put my absolute everything into supporting the manger, team and the club I love unconditionally.

I have kept away from forums and the like today... I am so... heartbroken, disillusioned and demoralized by whatever happened yesterday as we failed grimly to get any forwards in. I don't give us much hope. Who is to blame? Who knows? Many variables... but it's so sad players don't want to come to us.

Today, I was thinking about a documentary that was made by Granada, I think, in 1981. Simply titled CITY! It was a fly-on-the-wall of how Man City operated. Peter Swales's process of choosing their new manager... is how I imagine Everton's board is run. If you need gallows humour right now...

Lynn (58) Well said, The only way we can affect this club is the only way we want to anyway. That is give our backing to our manager and the players on the pitch.

Mind you, I feel for all the staff, mostly fellow Evertonians, who work for our club a) for any stick they might get and b) because this pathetic crew running our club might lose them their jobs.

I can't really work out how this shower have got our club in such an awful situation. Is it because they are such a cretinous crew that have seen us penniless when backed by a billionaire and a multi-billionaire?

Or is it that they have been too ambitious in aiming for the stars, without any expert financial or football guidance, and bought players on a whim of the Chairman or Owner, or they've both had a go?

Mind you, Kenwright has form, having "saved" the Liverpool Playhouse!

Even the most amateur Board (and should there be an amatuer board?) should surely, if they wanted to keep us in the Premier League, would have done what Lyndon has written about and used the 6-week period of the World Cup, made their mind up about sacking, or keeping, Frank Lampard.

If sacking him, find the most suitable replacement asap, and plan what players they would go for on the first day of the Transfer Window.

To leave everything until the last day or two, including interviewing two drastically opposite styles of manager, then leave it until the last day and last minute to bids on some kind of scattergun approach, and fail!!! to bring players in. Seems more than extremely amateurish to me. It seems as though they wanted this to happen.

Anyway, we are where we are now, and any slim chance of us maintaining our place in the Premier League is purely and simply up to our manager and our players. I'm with Lynn and so many who have already posted that my allegiance is totally with our manager and our players and our club.

Hopefully the scumbags, especially Sharp and Kenwright, on the Board, respect our club and stay away from the arena.
NSNO.

Curiously, I'm now looking forward to the next 2 games, and beyond. In something like 12 games this season just one more goal for us would have turned a loss into a draw or a draw into a win. The margins are small, as Dyche himself says. I'm now looking for that initial bounce.

Enough has been said about the owner, the board, the tranfer window. It's all been said.

Roll on Saturday.

I keep thinking how if we somehow beat Arsenal on Saturday then the entire dynamic changes. It might seem a forlorn hope but I remember Watford thrashing Liverpool a few years back when they were at or near rock bottom.

My question is, what team exactly are we talking about here?

The same bunch of shithouses who let us, and themselves, down every game?
The same cowards who wilt and surrender as soon as the going gets tough?
The same useless buggers who can't string more than two passes together?
Who show no cohesion, effort, spirit or interest in trying to compete?

I've supported Everton since I was about 5 years old and I'll probably still support them in the Northern Conference. But I refuse to give my blind support to a bunch of overpaid, underperforming wankers like we currently have – exceptions of course like Pickford, Coleman, Onana and the new manager. The rest can go and fuck off with the useless board.

No unification, no agreement, no working alongside each other... no shared vision. Those without vision PERISH!

We have no choice but to support the manager and team, not the owner or board, it is a situation I have clearly understood and tried to explain on the pages of ToffeeWeb for nearly 20 years. Michael K picked it up a while back reffering to my stance and asking the question "Who do you support?"

Some could not understand why there was even a distinction between the players, their manager and the running of the club. But in stark detail, the events of the last 18 months has exposed the incompetence that many of us knew existed but lay hidden and covered in self-interest for so long.

Right now, this minute until we are safe, the only thing I believe in is the team, my only focus is survival and getting behind the team I love. I have had two great loves in my life, I vowed on the same day that I would love them both till the day I die. My partner for life and my club for life.

Both shape my day, both colour my life, both mean everything to me.

So come on you fine people, from every walk of life, from every nook and cranny of this planet, we need you, we need our voices raised to roar a team on, to believe it can be done, in spite of, not because of, who owns the club, make this chapter all about what we did in the face of failure.
Support the team, it's all we have got.

Amen to that, girl, if you love Everton, heed Christine's rallying call. We can't change the Board, but we can ignore them at the game and get behind the team, no matter who turns out for them, starting on Saturday with a new manager who just might change the whole direction of the club.

This team and club of ours is all that matters now, shit or bust – but with the fans totally behind them throughout the rest of the season.

Christine nails it and I've been repeating it for a while; we can't keep blaming manager after manager. It's more deep-rooted than that. We can't keep lining up the next person for the firing line without fixing the root cause at the top.

When Saturday comes, as they say, we get behind the team, as we always do and always will.

Arsenal sold out almost before you could click on the website. Lucifer's Den sold out on the day the tickets went on sale.

It dismays me that the club and players can't show the same commitment and passion that we do at every single match.

I'm all for getting behind the team while it's mathematically possible, but we needed this spirit when we played Forest at Goodison.

I said at the time, if that match were played in March we'd have greeted the team bus with flares. Instead we let it pass. As we did Leicester and Wolves.

By the time Southampton walked off with all three points, it was all but over for our top-flight status.

February is going to be a huge month. The Arsenal game, unfortunately is a write-off. The way their second team played at Man City really was impressive, and they will not let up. I just pray we don't get an absolute hiding.

The season then begins 9 days later with the derby, and then 2 home games that should be seen as 'winnable'. 7 points from those 3 games could bring a dramatic change in perspective, anything less than 4 points and alarm bells will start ringing ever louder.

I live in hope that Dyche will get a tune out of Calvert-Lewin and even Maupay as a traditional 'little 'n large' strike force, and Gray and Onana being the driving forces from midfield.

Hopefully we will see massive improvement from players like Gueye, McNeil, Mykolenko, and whichever centre-halves he chooses. And hopefully Garner can come into the team and make an impact. There is hope that Simms, Mills, Price and maybe another youngster can come in and make an impact.

There is a lot of hope being pinned on Dyche's ability to improve this team. And we will back him 100% until the very end.

If the board did have any modicum of care for the club, they would announce the immediate resignations of Bill Kenwright and Graeme Sharp, with Moshiri publicly stating the club is up for sale. Barrett-Baxendale staying on as she has work to do on the stadium, fair enough. Ingles, because still need someone to work finances.

That, I believe, would appease the protests and allow fans and their support (and media reporting of it) to be 100% on the team.

What's done is done. The board have had, effectively, about 11 weeks to redeem themselves. Other than getting rid of Lampard, and finally replacing him with Dyche, which was all done way too late, they have let us down massively, by not getting in one signing in the January window.

Had Lampard gone during the World Cup break, a new manager (Dyche?) could have been appointed and had what in effect would have been like a summer pre-season to work with his players.

I was one who thought Lampard could have turned things around, but unfortunately, at the moment, he's not experienced enough to run a Premier League team. He should have done what the likes of Big Dunc has done, started off down in the lower leagues, learn his trade without fear of pressure etc, then maybe tried the big leagues.

So, for now, there is no more the board / owner can do, the past 11 weeks have gone, so forget about any protests, and let's fully focus 100% on supporting the team. Anyone who has already thrown in the towel, and maybe has a season ticket, perhaps you would like to pass it on to somebody who is willing to fight the cause to the death, and not give up, when we are only one game into the second half of the season.

The amazing thing is, we haven't won a league game, or any other game come to think of it, since 22 October, but are not bottom. I know it's only courtesy of goal difference we're not bottom, but still, we're not bottom.

Even more amazing, we are only 3 points from 14th position, albeit with a worse goal difference. So what does that tell you about the teams around us? All these teams may well have bought players in the last month, but do you know what? They can still only play eleven of them.

And besides, they've bought quantity, not quality. We are better, and way bigger than any of those teams around us. Sean Dyche will rejuvenate this squad, make us right horrible bastards to play against, and starting this Saturday, we will start climbing this bastard table.

So, if you're not up to the fight, then, as I said, pass your season ticket on to somebody else who is!

The club have had countless moments where making a decision, never mind making the right decision, would mean we wouldn't have ended up where we are. But those would've, could've, should've, moments right now will not get us out of the mire.

The owner and board have failed us because they made calls badly, or not at all, and betrayed supporters with unsubstantiated claims. "Too late now" I hear... but it isn't. There is half a season to play for, a new manager and our support.

Dyche talked like a man trying at all costs to avoid talking about a certain subject, I wonder why.

He is probably careful of his words and he'll let his managership speak for him.

I think the recording and podcast were both posted on Monday but it would have taken place earlier last week before he was announced and well before the debacle that was Transfer Deadline Day.

England goalkeeper, international centre-backs, Belgian international and Senegal internationals in midfield and an England international centre-forward. Add in Paterson, Iwobi, Gray… maybe Mills, Simms, Garner!

Granted there's few goal scorers but a spine like that must be enough with organisation, fight and fitness. I'm fully behind Dyche and the team until the season then let the real protests begin!

Misleading if it was before his appointment, and also as I said, he never mentioned Everton. Humphreys looking for clicks?

On the website I found, it was titled "Sean Dyche: Why I'm ready to manage again".

Also, the verbiage seems to suggest it was recorded before he was appointed as Everton manager: "Sean is expected to be back in management this week at Everton FC."

We could be saddled with an albatross that might be Bramley-Moore and see Lang O'Rourke getting Goodison for development until we can pay what is owed on the new stadium. And we could discover that Pickford, Patterson, Mykolenko, Onana, McNeil and Iwobi have clauses that makes their contracts null and void should Everton be relegated or even that it is proven that we really are in cahoots with a Russian oligarch. Mind you, reflecting on things since Mr Moshiri's involvement that might not be the worst thing and might lead to questions about who sold it, when and what due diligence was done. When the Witch Finder General starts looking dates matter little, (No, the other kind of dates).

On the plus side (there has to an equal and opposite, hasn't there?) Mr Dyche might save us from relegation, new owners will come in and with some sort of accounting miracle completely wipe out the club's debts and introduce a new club song, "When you wish upon a star".

Lyndon, I find it increasingly difficult to post on here. The situation is just too damn sad, and I am fearful that, should we go a couple of goals down on Saturday, Goodison will be a horrible place to be. And, well, it's hard to be there when it's like that. You, however, with the same emotional strain upon you as the rest of us, continue to write calm, articulate, rational commentary on the state of our beloved Club - thank you for doing so.

The joy of being at Goodison. Chips, peas and onion gravy. 3 points and a sleep on the train home.

That's what I always look forward to.

The politics can wait and continue. Saturday matters.