Premier League: Everton at risk of more than relegation

THERE is never a good time to be relegated but there is a strong argument that if Everton should drop out of the Premier League, the fallout may be more severe than if it happens to any of the fellow struggling clubs around them.

The Merseyside outfit showed their fighting spirit on Monday night by coming from behind to claim an away draw against fellow relegation worriers Leicester City at the King Power Stadium. Yet in typical fashion, the draw probably did little for either side when three-point wins are the only currency for survival. I suppose Everton can at least take a morale-boost from the fight at least. But the reality continues that Sean Dyche's side remain second from bottom with time running out fast.

Legacy

History more than most will play on any narrative of an Everton relegation should it happen. Everton have a 69 years run in the top flight at risk and still possess the record for the club with the longest time in top-flight football overall. 120 years of top-tier football has them 11 years ahead of Aston Villa and 12-years above their hated neighbours Liverpool on 108 years in third place. The last time the Toffees were outside of the elites was way back in the 1953 after a three-year spell in the doldrums.

Only Arsenal have a longer uninterrupted spell in the top flight having not been relegated since 1913 returning in 1919 and never relegated since.

If Everton should go down, it will be a radically new experience in comparison to all the sides they are battling with to avoid the drop, who have all experienced the shock of the drop in relatively recent times in their history.

All the other clubs know what to expect from the drop, have culturally become accustomed to life outside the top league. They have cut their budgets to accommodate the drop, should it happen to them, and may well be already planning their strategies for next season on a way of getting back to the Premier League.

Everton probably have never realistically countenanced such an eventuality and would be financially and culturally shocked by having to take the step down a tier. They have no frame of reference or experience of having to deal with such a framework and it must be ed that the last time they experienced this drop, Queen Elizabeth II was not on the throne, and Mount Everest was still to be conquered. Not much institutional memory of that remains at the club.

Costs

Financially, Everton’s payroll is certainly bigger than their fellow relegation strugglers, with maybe the exception being Leicester City, who still have a few high-earners from their title-winning campaign in 2016.

While clubs accustomed to relegation, even expecting the drop, will have cut their financial cloth with the expectation of a return to the Championship, Everton were ploughing finances into new talent and managers in the effort to avoid the drop.

Cuts to these wages, should they be relegated, will see a talent flight and result in any rebuilding having to be done with inferior players making any return all the more difficult.

The current Everton annual wage bill is just over £80m and that would be slashed immediately in the Championship as prize money and incomes become drastically reduced.

But even that is not the biggest financial worry. The Toffees are in the middle of building their new £500m stadium, down in the Liverpool docks, and having one the most expensive and hardest to repay stadium in the Championship is not a boost Everton will be looking to promote.

Add to all that, the fact that Everton’s combined losses for the past three financial years stand at £305.5m and you have the case that Everton are not only looking over their shoulders in a competitive sense but also in a bailiff sense.

Everton play Brighton, Manchester City, Wolves and Bournemouth in their remaining games, which is far from an easy run-in, and it now looks like going all the way to the very last day of the season. Who would want to be fan?

Coming

Of course, this did not all happen this season, bad board decisions, poor managerial choices, and hubris over many seasons, (just thinking of players bought at extravagant rates, Carlo Ancelotti mid-season departure, Frank Lampard indecisions), have now all come together at this point where a club with one of the longest and proudest of footballing records in the world are looking down the barrel of the relegation gun.

The road maybe running out for Everton not only for Premier League survival, but even existential survival and no football fan would want to see that happen.