BLUES ARE A SPENT FORCE
14 players each cost £20m or more – ONE has been a success. Moshiri’s experiment has failed and Everton need new approach
SINCE Farhad Moshiri bought Everton in 2016, he has purchased 14 players who each cost £20m or more.
It is a defining statistic of his regime, given that the team find themselves in the lowest position since 1997 at this stage of the season.
Put more simply, Everton have their worst team of the 21st century… despite spending more money on it than at any time in their history.
And that gets to the rancid core of the problem with the billionaire financier’s reign at Goodison – far too much money thrown away on too many bad players.
Yannick Bolasie cost £30m, Davy Klaassen £25m. Neither is at Everton this season, and between them they made 35 starts for the club. That is £1.57m per game. On two players.
The list is embarrassing. Cenk Tosun cost £25m, Morgan Schneiderlin £21m. Neither seemingly has a future at Goodison. In fact, of those 14 signings, only Jordan Pickford looks a real success – and he has his critics.
Moshiri must take the blame for that, if only because he appointed two directors of football during that time who made the decision on all those transfers.
Steve Walsh was a spectacular disaster, sanctioning over-priced moves for so many players who are now surplus to requirements, with only perhaps the £9m capture of Idrissa Gueye suggesting the eye for a deal he showed as a scout at Leicester.
And though Marcel Brands looks far more suited to the role as an accomplished football man with many contacts, his signings too hung Marco Silva out to dry.The £30m paid for Alex Iwobi looked a panic buy in the summer and looks even more suspect now. Injuries to Andre Gomes and Jean-Philippe Gbamin have not helped, but where are the centrehalf and central striker Everton – and Silva – needed so badly?
It is recruitment that lies at the heart of the problems Moshiri, above, has faced. While many fans still suspect chairman Bill Kenwright pulls the strings, the truth is Moshiri makes his own decisions.
It was he who pursued Silva so vigorously throughout 2018, despite the advice from Brands and his chairman that the Portuguese coach’s record did not stand up to scrutiny.At Everton, his points per game average was only fractionally better than with Hull – a club he got relegated.
And prior to arriving at Goodison, he recorded 1.08 points per game at Watford before being sacked. Again, relegation form. So to find Everton in the relegation zone is hardly a surprise. Hull under Silva conceded more goals from set pieces than any other Premier League team. His Watford side were the third worst and, under Silva, Everton have the worst record on set pieces in the top flight. At all three of his Premier League clubs, he has a negative goal difference – just 123 goals scored in 95 games and 153 conceded. So Moshiri’s instinct to ignore the advice has proved suspect. Not for the first time. His first act as the new owner of Everton was to sack Roberto Martinez, despite the Spaniard’s record. He appointed and then swiftly sacked Ronald Koeman. Both have thrived as international managers. Martinez had 1.44 points per game at Everton, Koeman 1.47. Silva has 1.28, and this season 0.93. Perhaps the worst decision of all was
to appoint Sam Allardyce and alienate the entire fanbase. But even his points per game at Goodison was 1.42.
It is the disconnect between club and fans which is most glaring now, and it is not hard to see why. Despite the money Moshiri has poured in – almost £450m on transfers since he arrived, the fourth highest spending in the Premier League – supporters do not trust the decisions.
That explains the agonising over Silva’s future, when it was clear he should have gone weeks ago. Eight defeats in the last 11 league matches is a record that would condemn any manager in the top flight.
Now Moshiri cannot afford to get another huge decision wrong.And the faults of the past, the shocking recruitment and the lack of direction, has put off the best candidates to replace Silva.
If Moshiri’s regime has been an experiment, then it has failed. After clearing out the laboratory, he needs to introduce a more forensic science to his decision-making.