Everton Statistics Since Moshiri bought into the Club in 2016

This article will look at the statistics of Everton and provide only facts — there is some conjecture when it is appropriate to do this, but everything within this document is the truth. As Keats once opined, “Truth beauty”. Others have also been quoted as saying that “you can’t handle the truth!” You, my dear reader, can decide which is which…

Those statistics in full

Games played in front of crowds only where * denotes; games behind closed doors, friendlies and all cup fixtures are not counted:

(Remainder of 2015-16 Season)
Won	3
Dawn	3
Lost	6
2016-17
Won	17
Dawn	10
Lost	11
2018-19
Won	13
Dawn	10
Lost	15
2019-20*
Won	10
Dawn	7
Lost	12
2021-22
Won	11
Dawn	6
Lost	21
2022-23
Won	8
Dawn	12
Lost	18
2023-24
Won	13
Dawn	9
Lost	16
2024-25
Won	0
Dawn	0
Lost	4
Total
Played	273
Won	90	(32.96%)
Dawn	66	(24.17%)
Lost	117	(42.85%)
Max. possible points	819
Points accrued	336
Since 1 January 2022 only*
Played	127	(46.52%)
Won	35	(27.55%)
Dawn	30	(23.62%)
Lost	62	(48.81%)
Max. possible points	381
Points accrued	135

Everyone knows that it has been a miserable time for Evertonians. I’m not interested in probable computer simulations — this is why the games behind closed doors are exclusively excluded from these statistics, the times during which all life was miserable because we weren’t allowed to live. The fact Everton went on without us hurt quite a lot and it always will. However, the above facts reveal the extent to which our blue life has plummeted to dangerously unsafe levels of misery. The cup stats are omitted as I wouldn’t wish to unduly depress you…

Since 2020, we have had the following permanent managers: Ancelotti, Benitez, Lampard and Dyche (and also Duncan Ferguson for one match as a caretaker). Or, in other words, on average, a new permanent manager for each year and a quarter thus far. Panning out for the full reign of Moshiri, we have suffered with four others — Martinez, Koeman, Allardyce and Silva (with Big Dunc having a famous prolonged cameo as a caretaker; a one-off Joe Royle/David Unsworth combination and David Unsworth additionally having a brief stint in his own right). In 70 years on the throne, Queen Elizabeth II appointed 15 Prime Ministers. In slightly more than 8 years, Moshiri has appointed more than half that amount as Everton manager.

It is open season on Dyche — in fact, the only manager not to have endured such an ‘open season’ since the dawn of this decade was Ancelotti, although the fact that most of his reign was behind closed doors and also the fact that he is one of the greatest managers of all time perhaps helped him along in this regard. In my opinion, given that Ancelotti is rather better known for taking teams already challenging at the top rather than crafting something from scratch from nowhere in particular suggests that he was the wrong manager at the wrong time for us.

Everyone knows and holds strong views about the board of directors in this time and their collective despicable dereliction of duty in our downfall — but another main constant has been many of the players. In other words,  you can sack Dyche now if you so desire — sound — but the next manager will only have the same team to pick from until at least January 2025 and perhaps more realistically, much longer than that. A new manager may be able to prop up this struggling team before it predictably falls to pieces again — and the stats above reveal that is precisely what will happen if someone hails a taxi for Dyche. Any new manager might not be able to sign eleven players of their choice across the pitch — they may not get such time to spend...

ToffeeWeb will attract mostly Evertonians, but will occasionally attract the interest of supporters of other clubs. There is no question that there is plenty of misery about at many other clubs aside from ours — Oldham Athletic, Bury and Southend United are a few clear and random examples of how not to run a football club over a sustained period of time — but none of these clubs have operated with the size of our budget (which stretches into the hundreds of millions of pounds), in a city in which our hated rivals over the other side of Stanley Park have swept all before them and have seriously challenged on all fronts quite regularly — and in a league which, if the marketing spiel is truly correct, is the most watched and beloved around the globe. Sure, Oldham did briefly play in the Premier League but that was a very long time ago, now. For those reasons, we are comfortably the worst-run team in the country, and quite possibly, in continental Europe.

It Gets Worse

Take off your royal-blue blinkers and look around the City of Liverpool, especially in town itself. Look at how often you see people adorning the memorabilia of the reds rather than the blues. It’s got to be close to 70-30 in their favour, if not higher, rather than the 50-50 divide it perhaps once was. I did a physical count of my social media pals a few years ago — sadly, I have misplaced the datasheet with the concise result but, of those who had declared any footballing allegiance or interest (however tenuous) one way or another, I recall it being well over 60% in favour of the reds. Except for those who live in entirely blue or red ‘ghettos’ (I know of a few), I would hazard a guess that many other Evertonians reading here would probably conjure up a similar result, assuming that they were born somewhere on Merseyside.

Directly after the Bournemouth capitulation, I overheard a young boy — perhaps 5 or 6 years old, but certainly on the tiny side if a bit older/younger than that — speaking to his dad. “Other than beating Liverpool, I don’t really like Everton”, he said. Seeing the clear distress upon the faces of all blues immediately after the full-time whistle was bad enough,  although there were much more pronounced grimaces amongst those senior blues tasked with looking after younger generations; and there seemed to be real tears adorning some faces.

The party is surely over for us. With each dismal showing on the pitch by us and each gleaming stride made by them over in Shelbyville, the young-school generation is almost certain to be mainly lost. What is perhaps 70-30 now will in a decade’s time be 80-20, or more.

Look at how many murals there are for Liverpool — yes, many of them around Anfield — but there has been plenty in the city as well as elsewhere. These would probably have been unthinkable in the 1990s as the very real risk of vandalism from a large and passionate Evertonian contingent would have made it a rather pointless venture. With Everton muted to the point that we are now, little wonder they have popped up more frequently all around us.

They have even had dedicated sports bars (“Jurgen’s”, albeit now renamed to the “Three Graces” now Klopp has left) in town. Would you seriously annoy half of your potential customer-base by doing something as outlandish as that for so long? But then, the reality is that would only apply if the city was truly divided 50-50 — and on this evidence, it clearly isn’t.

Even comparing the size of the Shankly Hotel (125 rooms) against the Dixie Dean Hotel (47 rooms) could illustrate the true nature of football demand in the city. As a percentage of the combined rooms, the Shankly (72.67%) and Dean (27.32%) room split effectively and broadly correlates with what we see now on the streets daily.

Yes, the new Lock Up Bar is nominally a blue house; but it has seemingly been marketed in line with the older tradition of the term referring to a ‘drunk tank’ with the modern twist of it also being a ‘sports bar’ — the signage, albeit in blue livery, suggests something more neutral in reality than what Jurgen’s ever was. In town, The Denbigh is also Everton-friendly, of course it is; but its interior is notably neutral. The only hint that it may be overtly pro-Everton is buried deep upon its website where it recommends the Dixie Dean Hotel ‘as a place to stay’. That’s it.

Elsewhere in town, the Lanigan’s Group, which now encompasses the ex-Marlborough O’Brien’s pub (Fitzgerald’s) and Slaters Bar; although principally Irish themed, doesn’t operationally hide its bias in favour of Liverpool (and Celtic!) — a picture of the Kop on matchday adorns its website, even. I’ve not been in O’Neill’s for a while but a red neon sign ‘You’ll never drink alone’ on the entry couldn’t be more striking — it may be that there’s an Everton reference of some description inside, but I harbinger some doubts about it existing.

Ava’s Bar is another that I haven’t been in for a while, and on researching this it appears to have had a refurbishment since then — there used to be a ‘Liverpool FC’ street sign inside it; perhaps when it was Cheeky Jacks — but no such Everton equivalent. Part of the Brownlows Inn grouping, whose website has two pictures of Anfield… but none of Goodison.

In the Baltic Boxpark: they “chose an image of an all-LFC crowd to advertise the Merseyside derby (at Goodison) and red lighting was used throughout the match” at least according to the Liverpool Echo. Everton’s fixture with Southampton on Tuesday is widely televised on Sky Sports+; however, the Boxpark website advertises Young Boys against Aston Villa (firstly) and AC Milan against Liverpool (secondly) — even a pub quiz — but not Everton’s fixture against Southampton. They do reference our fixture versus Newcastle in early October, though. Ho hum.

Even up County Road and Walton Road, staunch Everton strongholds on Goodison match days — but for how much longer? Could you imagine a world in which we were successful and were playing in a European Cup Final but decided on going into the King Harry pub near Anfield in a full Everton replica kit? Yet in the Royal Oak on both the European Cup Finals of 2018 and 2019, I saw a few clad in a full Liverpool kit — and there was even a cardboard cutout of Klopp in the Chepstow; and the Glebe (or Bernie May’s as it currently trades as) had a Liverpool flag flying above it.

Vex Appeal

Remember a few years ago when they used to have ‘football legends’ play in an indoor tournament — as televised by Sky (who else?) — Masters Football became defunct because interest within it essentially dwindled over the long run. Yet Liverpool seem to put on random one-off ‘legends’ fixtures at Anfield and attract near-capacity crowds. In 10 or 15 years time, could you imagine going to a match and paying actual money to watch Tom Davies, Mason Holgate, Jonjoe Kenny, Davy Klaassen, Fabian Delph, Jo and all the other dross players we’ve had to endure over the years in an Everton shirt again?

On a more serious point, attendances have slightly declined already this season — of course, the first game back is normally going to have a big gate, however the game against Doncaster did not sell out (37,245); Bournemouth also had a high gate but 38,805 means there was still room for 609 more spectators than turned up. There presumably is a finite amount of rubbish that one fanbase can reasonably endure — Goodison, new ground or elsewhere — in fact, given we are so badly up the duff financially speaking, it wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest if we don’t even play at the new stadium in Bramley-Moore Dock. In fact, we could conceivably even be tenants before perhaps running out of cash at some distant point in the future and having to play somewhere else, much like Coventry City did. This assumes the club continues as a going concern of some description.

We’ll always have a hardcore and huge away following, wherever we may go, but full attendances will probably dip much more markedly the more the club recedes on the pitch. Of course, outlooks in football can change quite quickly, but we can only go on what we see at the moment. Will a team which has lost a large majority of its games within this decade just dramatically run away with a title or more, and so soon? Don’t forget, one bookmaker has already paid out on us being relegated this season. That is exactly how atrocious we are.

It's Tough At The Top — But Much Tougher To Get There And Stay

Teams competing for top honours used to be more cyclical and open before the creation of the Premier League. Overcoming the ‘Sly 6’ is borderline mission impossible — we are now 32 years into the Premier League ‘era’. In that time, there have been only seven different clubs declared as champions: Arsenal, Blackburn Rovers, Chelsea, Leicester City, Liverpool, Manchester City and Manchester United. Two of those clubs were relegated a while after reaching their zenith (Blackburn in 1999 and Leicester in 2023).

City were of course not always in the top flight during the Premier League era, even slumping as low as the third tier for a period. Perhaps they were always going to do what they’ve gone on to do since 2008, anyway — we’ll never truly know — but Shiekh Mansour’s mega riches truly transformed them in a way akin to the unlimited cash-to-spend cheat code would do in Football Manager games passim.

In the final 32 years of the ‘plain old’ First Division, there were 11 different teams to claim the championship — in ABC order: Arsenal, Aston Villa, Derby County, Everton, Ipswich Town, Leeds United, Liverpool, Manchester City, Manchester United, Nottingham Forest and Tottenham Hotspur. It is perhaps also worth pointing out that Burnley and Wolves were also champions in the two full seasons prior to this timeframe.

A sense of elitism has captured the game but it matters not if the money is lavished at a select bunch of clubs or is spread more evenly around. Once a team stops adequately competing for the top prizes, it simply fades away. Fundamentally, this has not changed, Sky or no Sky.

Look at Sunderland (six times winners of the top division; last successful in this quest before the Second World War was even a thing in 1936 — remarkably, this was the last time any team wearing a striped home jersey won it. Interestingly, despite heavy investments in the 1950s, this did not prevent relegation near the end of that decade).

Newcastle Utd (four time winners but last successful in the season immediately before Dixie’s 60 goals in a season in 1927); Sheffield Wednesday (four time winners last successful in 1930); Leeds Utd (the last ‘old-fashioned’ winners in 1992); Huddersfield Town (never sighted at the summit after the end of the mid-1920s); Derby County (last won it when the EU/EEC-Remain types actually won an argument at the ballot box, in 1975); Portsmouth (back-to-back winners last won it when we were still yet to be relegated for a second time, in 1950); and of course Preston North End (the first ‘invincibles’ — but thence permanently knocked out of the championship frame after 1890).

What helped Manchester Utd, Liverpool, Arsenal and Chelsea (in the mid- to late-1990s in their case, at least) was victories in cup finals and that kept them relevant when they too may otherwise have faded away — or, in Chelsea’s case, put them back on the map. Unlike the others quoted there, save for Sunderland’s famous win in 1973, Preston winning the first televised FA Cup Final in 1938 and back-to-back wins in the early 1950s for Newcastle (as well as the Uefa Fairs Cup in 1969) — and a few other minor titbits for the likes of Sheffield Wednesday or ultimately failed title challenges by a few of those named — they all simply faded away. Newcastle now have the riches to come back and seriously challenge, and also have an improving side, but the rest of those named will be no-hopers for further decades to come.

We are nonetheless in a drought every inch as serious as all of the above named clubs would recognise; perhaps more of a fading-spiral if ever one was. The mere saving grace is the unbroken run in the top division which was not afforded to any of those named above. In the Premier League era, we have had a mathematical chance of winning the title as late as April only once — in 2013-14, albeit this wasn’t routinely shouted from the rooftops.

We’ve reached just the two Cup Finals since 1992, winning one but we’ve gone without an appearance in the FA Cup Final since 2009, of course. Within much less than twelve months’ time, a child born on Cup Final day of 2009 will be legally able to join the army or claim benefits. If the parents of the said child were born in 1991 (18 years previously from 2009) or even slightly later than that, as is quite possible… they may well not be even able to remember Everton’s FA Cup win of 1995 — in full, or even at all… Things might only get worse.

The Emperor’s New Stadium

All supporters of all clubs typically toe the party line but, with Everton, it now seems to be a psychosis of epic proportions. I can’t stand seeing it any more without calling it out. It isn’t just the official club narrative emanating from the official channels — plenty of supporters are guilty of it, even on fan channels. This is a typical, not-exhaustive example over the last few years:

Everton have just been beaten on the pitch? “New stadium update…”

Everton unable to land a transfer target? “New stadium this…”

Everton admit breaking the financial rules? “New stadium that…”

Everton self-destruct in a game they nearly won but didn’t? “New stadium the other…”

Everton deducted points? “And the new stadium…”

Everton jacking up ticket prices when we didn’t even know what division we’ll be playing in? “So, new stadium…”

Everton’s captain injured? “New stadium…”

In fact, any player injured seriously? “Ah, new stadium…”

Everton in financial meltdown… again? “But see, new stadium…”

I get it — the club have a new toy, albeit not one that they’ve paid for yet, but you could be forgiven for thinking that we are actually called New Stadium FC for all that the official channels regularly harp on about it. I do understand that some supporters are keen to track its progress — and the club are only too happy to oblige — yet the footballing side seems to be an afterthought now that, if and when we move into said new stadium, it isn’t clear what smokescreen the club will deploy to distract from the fact that the club aren’t anywhere near competitive.

Just hoping things will improve on the pitch just for moving into a new stadium seems very simplistic to me — at least in the early years, but nothing can totally rule out a struggle in the longer-term, either. A new stadium isn’t going to improve the players; the men behind the scenes, the management and Finch Farm should be doing that, but despite apparently having a state-of-the-art training facility, we have been mainly regressive on the pitch save for a few bright spots in one-off seasons since moving there.

A new stadium won’t magically ‘improve’ the atmosphere, either — the majority of match-goers are going to be the ones currently going to Goodison. Reasonably, I fail to see how new bricks and mortar is going to produce this myopic and rousing at all times passion for 90 minutes or more in absolutely every fixture. When we are playing someone we are expecting to beat — just like at the home grounds of so many other clubs when they have a ‘home gimme’, the atmosphere will fall flat. I am certain the new stadium will be no different from Goodison in that aspect. Given that at the new ground there will be more corporate spectators than at Goodison, there is an excellent chance that the atmosphere will actually recede in relative terms. The prawn sarny brigade are not renowned for being loud and passionate — this goes for all clubs...

The great Danny O’Neill always advocates for written texts to conclude on a positive. However it would be remiss to do so; I simply say what I see, as Roy Walker would urge along back in the day. Ironically, I consider myself as optimistic — at least in other walks of life. I’ll still be going to as many home and away fixtures as I possibly can — rare is it that I would miss a game home or away. Instead, I’ll ask for Everton to be defiant for once in my life. I say the outlook is exceedingly bleak for the club, perhaps as bleak as we could ever have known it, but Everton, prove me wrong. Go on, Everton, prove me wrong…

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