In its thirty years, the Premier League has played host to a huge number of different teams and legendary players. There has been a total of 7 different winners, most surprisingly Leicester City in 2016. One team has gone unbeaten for the entire season, Arsenal’s 2004 team will always be known as the “Invincibles”. 6 teams can boast they have never been relegated from the Premier League. Arsenal, Liverpool, Manchester United, Tottenham, Chelsea, and Everton.
That number may soon be down to 5 with Everton running the risk of relegation to the Championship at the time of writing, only 4 points above the relegation zone. But what has happened to the Merseyside team that has always been a steady ship?
Surprisingly, many Evertonians blame Manchester United for their downfall.
In 2013, the football world was rocked when Sir Alex Ferguson announced he was retiring from Manchester United. This announcement brought a massive question, “who will take over at Manchester United?” From early in the search, it was very widely known that David Moyes was Sir Alex Fergusons favourite as a replacement. A fellow Scot, and Moyes was in the running to be Fergusons assistant before Steve McClaren stepped in. David Moyes had done well at Everton in his time there with manager of the month awards, multiple seasons in European competitions, multiple top 6 finishes in the Premier League, and buying and developing talent in his squads with the likes of Tim Cahill, James Beattie and Wayne Rooney all performing well under Moyes. But when the worst kept secret in all of football was finally announced, David Moyes said goodbye to the Blue of Everton and made his way to the Red of Manchester United.
Initially, Moyes’ replacement, Roberto Martinez did well with Everton’s highest ever premier league total. The following seasons were disappointing, and Martinez was sacked after a total of 3 seasons in charge after finishing 11th in the league.
After Martinez, Everton turned into a club that you could very easily describe as playing for now and not really thinking about their future with their next 3 managerial appointments. Ronald Koeman, Sam Allardyce and Marco Silva. Koeman had done well at Southampton but failed to last after just over a season in charge. Allardyce came in to do a typical Allardyce job, steady the ship until the end of the season. He finished the season in 8th place and left at the end of the season.
In comes Marco Silva, in somewhat of a shock move considering his previous 2 appointments ended after only short spells in charge. After 60 games in charge, Silva’s only highlight seems to be a 22-0 victory against an Australian amateur team in a pre-season friendly. He was given the boot after 60 games after a run of 2 wins in 11 Premier League matches.
Even 2 of the biggest names in football didn’t last long. Carlo Ancelotti left to accept a job at Real Madrid, and Rafa Benitez couldn’t even last a full season.
Which brings us to today. Frank Lampard, one of the best midfielders you’ll see. On par with Paul Scholes, Steven Gerrard, and Xavi. Unfortunately for Everton, he is very inexperienced as a manager with only 2 previous clubs on his managerial CV. Nevertheless, he was the top target of Everton. His lack of experience in management is proving to outweigh his practical footballing knowledge and is steering Everton closer and closer towards relegation with dropped points after dropped points. Their recent win over Manchester United still only leaves them 4 points ahead of the drop zone with only a handful of games left to play, 4 of which are against Chelsea, Leicester, Liverpool, and Arsenal. For Franks sake, we hope they beat the drop but with the run of matches still to come, we may well be seeing the blue half of Merseyside playing in the second tier of English football from next season.