LIVERPOOL, England — The joy of survival lasted less than a minute at Goodison Park. Everton got the win they needed to avoid relegation from the Premier League, beating Bournemouth 1-0 with Abdoulaye Doucoure’s second-half goal, but the overriding emotion at the end of the game was anger.
Anger at being in this position — again — but also at the regime in charge of running the club. The fans chanted “Sack the board!” before Sean Dyche’s players left the pitch, but the board wasn’t there to hear it. Directors, chairman Bill Kenwright and owner Farhad Moshiri have been unable to attend a home game since the club cited security concerns over their safety ahead of the clash against Southampton on January 14.
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This is the third time that Everton have achieved a so-called Great Escape on the last day of a Premier League season, having also saved their skin in 1994 and 1998. Everton brushed aside relegation in other occasion, managed to avoid the last day drama of last season with a victory in their penultimate game, but the reason that the celebrations were short on this occasion is because the supporters of the club had enough lack of success.
Doucoure, whose stunning right-footed shot from 20 yards sealed the crucial win over Bournemouth, summed up the mood around the club with a candid assessment of what survival means.
“There’s a lot of work to do,” he said after the game. “We can’t get carried away. I’m not a hero. There’s nobody here. We work and play for Everton and we need to be better than that. We need to realize the mistakes we’ve made this season. In the end, but in next season we have to come back stronger and put Everton on top.
Relegation always comes with mistakes and incompetence off the pitch and Everton were lucky not to suffer the ultimate punishment for their shortcomings.
They allowed last season’s top scorer, Richarlison, to leave in a £60 million move to Tottenham, choosing to replace him with Brighton’s Neal Maupay for less than a quarter of that fee. Maupay only scored once in the entire season and that was in September.
In January, manager Frank Lampard was sacked after 11 defeats in 14 games, with Everton the only club not to sign in the transfer window. But they allowed young forward Anthony Gordon to join Newcastle in a £45m deal.
It could be argued that appointing Dyche as manager was the right thing for the Everton board, as the former Burnley boss kept the club in the Premier League. But Dyche was not their first choice. Marcelo Bielsa, Dyche’s polar opposite in terms of coaching style, was the board’s choice. But the former Leeds manager quickly realized that Everton were in a bigger mess than he could solve in six months, so Dyche got the job.
Unless there is major upheaval at the club – there is constant speculation surrounding ownership and whether Everton could be sold – Dyche will remain in charge to maintain the team and ensure progress is made. But there was a dose of reality from the manager after this game.
“It’s a terrible day for everyone concerned,” he said. “There is no joy in this for me. It is very difficult, but the positive side is that we got the job done. There are a lot of changes here and a lot of work that needs to be done, but this is a big step in doing it. . Evertonians, as wonderful as they have been, have to remember that. We can’t say, ‘Oh, that’s okay.’ I don’t have magic dust to solve this.
“If you ask five different Everton fans what we need, you will get five different answers, so we have to realign everything. The work on next season starts the day I arrive here. The fans want us to be at the top end of the market because we are a big club, but we are not performing like a big club.
Hitting the reset button as a Premier League team is much easier than a failed EFL Championship club, however.
Everton are due to move into a new stadium in time for the 2024-25 season, but before that, they will have to deal with any sanctions that come their way after being charged by the Premier League in March for breaching regulations. of financial fair play. If the charge is upheld, Everton could drop points next season, so “Groundhog Day” next year is a possibility.
Avoiding relegation is absolutely vital for Everton. Next season will be their 70th consecutive campaign in the top division – only Arsenal (98 seasons) can boast a longer streak – and that sense of the club’s future is in the balance hangs in the air before this game.
The streets around Goodison were quiet prematch, as if no one dared to speak, and the peace was broken only by supporters chanting outside the ground, setting off flares and fireworks as kickoff approached.
Last season, the same fans were credited by Lampard for helping to keep the team going after creating a fierce atmosphere in the building, welcoming the coach to the players with color and noise. Dyche didn’t want that. He wanted to lower the emotion, treat it like a normal day, so the players arrived one by one in their cars. Perhaps also a ruse to allow them to escape quickly afterwards if events had turned out differently.
But there’s no need to go out the back door thanks to Doucoure. He scored the goal that was crucial to keep Everton in the Premier League, knocking out Leicester and Leeds.
The Everton board will be celebrating somewhere, but the fact that they walked away from such an important game tells you everything about the tightrope the club still has to walk.
They stayed, but no one celebrated too loudly.