Does it really matter?

Also thanks must go to the biggest clown in football, Moshiri – the fool who selected him, Kenwright – along with the players who are not fit to wear the Blue shirt of Everton Football Club (the home of the worst squad in existence).

I too would support them in whatever league they end up. I honestly think that a lot of Everton fans need to get their heads out of their behinds.

Football as we of a certain age knew it to be, is long gone, finished. It became a cartel when the Premier League was introduced. Everything since has been geared and manufactured to secure the top 5/6.

Truth is, I gave up on any sort of sanity football-wise years ago. Still can't stop supporting them though. Big sigh.

Part of me thinks a spell, hopefully short, in the Championship would be no bad thing. But then we get promoted to the poisonous, corrupt Premier League again…

Ah fuck it. It is what it is.

There are only 2 avenues of salvation: monumental oil money or the recruitment of an unknown manager of the young Mourinho type.

Both unlikely.

Nostalgia is great in the pub with yer mates but it's no way to run a successful business or we'd still be buying suits on tick from Jackson's. Dump the embarrassing anachronisms, the People's Club with its simpering tone of Lady Di and for once and all get rid of the nepotism and cronyism which have brought us to these depths.

Who in their right mind thought that a headmistress and honorary professor was the right person to run a multi-million pound business?

Weather this storm, get to the new stadium at Bramley-Moore Dock in whatever league we are, and start afresh.

You have to look at Brighton's success and see that as the model.

Relegation will be something that deals a permanent blow to our hopes of being at the top table in a meaningful way ever again. And articles like this are symptomatic of the fact that it is all but an inevitability now.

I agree, it does matter for the next generation.

I go to see my brother, brother-in-law and people I've been friends with for over 30 years. We used to take our sons to every home match (6 of them); one by one, they have made excuses not to go, mainly couldn't be arsed.

Now, we are all in our 60s and only one of 'the kids' still goes on a regular basis. Once they get out of the habit of going, it's not going to come back and eventually our new shiny stadium will be more than half empty (like Sunderland's) and the downward spiral will continue.

It's okay for us to say we will support them in the Northern Premier League, but once we go, who will take our place? And 40,000 regulars in the space of a couple of years will quickly drop and never come back.

The football they play is something Dyche would never do. Quick attacking, good passing and movement. Not just ale-house hoofing shite.

The nuance I would add is finding players not fulfilling their potential at other clubs. I remember thinking Paul Power from Man City was a joke, yet he turned into one of our best-ever acquisitions.

Brian Clough built his all-conquering Forest on such players like Kenny Burns, Tony Woodcock, Larry Lloyd and John Robertson. It can be done but it needs a great motivator to polish those hidden gems.

John @6,

I remember my brother saying he didn't want his 2 kids enduring the Everton torture so got them interested in sailing – that was 30 years ago!!! This stupor has been long in the making and, as you rightly say, once they go, they don't come back. We really are looking into the abyss just now.

Objectively, from a football competitiveness standpoint, then dropping down a league would actually be a good thing. It would be great to start a season with more than 2 or 3 teams having a good chance of winning the league.

The Premier League is definitely not a good sporting competition. The difference in revenue and total salaries between the top and bottom teams is insane.

If you were starting a competition from scratch you definitely wouldn't design one like the Premier League. Why would anyone reward teams so handsomely for finishing 4th or even 5th this season?

I would be massively in favour of letting the big boys bugger off... I have no interest in them at all. I used to watch games like Man Utd vs Arsenal back in the day but had zero interest in the Man City vs Arsenal game over the weekend. I genuinely couldn't give a shit who wins the Premier League (other than I would prefer Klopp didn't win of course).

There is no sporting answer to bridging the gap. Doing things the "right" way through good coaching and recruitment will still end up with a good season finishing 6th at best. Brighton have been going well but have won nothing and don't look like they will any time soon.

Everton came under the control of Bill Kenwright who basely mortgaged Everton to enrich himself. When he needed more money, he contacted Philip Green. Green was advisor to Moshiri and Usmanov on their Arsenal Premier League investment. He linked them up with Kenwright, who was looking to continue to run Everton and continue to enrich himself. He was in good company with Usmanov and Green who were of a similar disposition.

Moshiri is just a patsy in the process. Even if Everton goes down the swanee, Usmanov and Green will make money out of Everton along with a few others, even if relegated. Green made a fortune even when his businesses collapsed around him.

So Evertonians have to keep Everton in the Premier League, they also have to back the Premier League regulation, imperfect as it is, and they also need to back Government regulation.

It would be easy to give up and hope for the best, but the survival of Everton FC is at stake and some Evertonians have been fighting for 30 years to save their club.

Imagine if that were to happen to Everton, if that Eastenders kid came knocking on your door trying to convince you that you supported a team called Everton with a billion in debt, a crap group of players, and a second-rate manager that hadn't enjoyed success in three decades, would you say "please help me remember?"

Or would you happily embrace the collective memory loss? And get back to watching rugby, cricket, It's a Knockout, Stars in Their Eyes rr whatever was filling the void in your life?

The sooner somebody puts us out of our misery and we morph into St Domingo Phoenix, the better for everyone's sanity.

This time next season...

I'm channelling my inner Danny O... breatheeeeeeee!

Brendan, keep going and keep breathing!

I've been talking to my younger brother and nephew this week. They are a lot more pragmatic and sensible than me. We have different views, but we all come together on match day and want the same thing.

It might impact my kids. They're passionate now, but they're still young.

If we drop down the leagues, it will almost certainly end a long family history of Everton supporters. That might die with my progeny.

That's important. Everyone involved in this club is just a custodian. They've got a responsibility to look after this thing of ours and hand it over again.

That's why I have no sympathy for the argument that we were just unlucky that there was a war in Ukraine. We swam with sharks and it wasn't the right choice. They were not the right custodians.

Unfortunately, they are all over football now.

The thought of us being relegated fills me with horror and sadness.

Yes, that's true with some people, but for others, when the anger calms down, the worry and fretting takes its place and, as Laurie says @19, pride comes into it, especially with the players and being honest most fans care a lot more than plenty of these players.

I dread tonight's game but I'll be glued to my iPad, kicking every ball and making most tackles before some of these players even think about it. As for relegation, I don't even think about it because, putting it mildly, if we go down, we are in no position to even think about coming back up straight away.

Fuck-all hope that we'll win tonight and get some relief until Saturday.