LONDON – When Manchester United arrive at Goodison Park on Nov 26, they will be met by plumes of blue smoke. There is insurrection in the air among the blue half of Merseyside.
Over a week has gone by since Everton’s 10-point penalty for financial irregularities, but little calm has descended. The first game that followed the sanction was always likely to be a tinderbox occasion.
Few stadiums seethe with the venom that can be heard when there is anger in the air at Goodison. The club’s fans, despite what have come near-annual battles against relegation, almost always find solidarity in adversity.
Erik ten Hag’s United, hardly the most durable of outfits, have to respond to entering the eye of the storm. “If they are mad and that’s their fuel, we have to match those standards,” admitted ten Hag on Nov 24.
United are a club with their own concerns. Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s purchase of 25 per cent of United from the Glazer family was delayed by Thanksgiving in the United States and its lengthy passage has created a power vacuum.
The club’s chief executive Richard Arnold has already signalled his departure and the director of football, John Murtough, is expected to follow once Ratcliffe brings in his own people, including Sir Dave Brailsford, the mastermind behind Great Britain’s cycling success on track and the road in the 2000s and 2010s.
If United’s situation remains opaque, then Everton’s is yet more mysterious. Their own takeover, by Miami-based 777 Partners, a finance company with a global portfolio of clubs, is not yet complete.
It was reported this week that the points deduction will lead the Floridians to ask for a reduction in an agreed deal with outgoing owner Farhad Moshiri that is still yet to be ratified by authorities.
Beyond Sean Dyche’s playing staff, who started the season with 14 points from 12 games, reduced to four, Everton are a rudderless ship.
“It’s disproportionate, it feels like it’s unjust,” said Dyche, as Evertonians pick over the bones of an independent commission’s ruling, waiting impatiently for the actions against Manchester City, staring down 115 charges, with Chelsea also likely to face punishment for irregularities during Roman Abramovich’s ownership.
It has been a week of politics in the English Premier League, and 777, before its ownership is confirmed, was reported to be behind Everton being among the seven clubs who successfully voted against a proposal to temporarily ban loans of players between clubs who share the same ownership. The proposal required 14 clubs.
To take the most obvious example, Newcastle United can now borrow players from the Saudi Pro League clubs with whom they share ownership.
Ruben Neves, the high-class former Wolverhampton Wanderers midfielder, plays for Al-Hilal. Being able to loan him on favourable terms would allow Newcastle to negotiate financial constraints.
Change is in the air. Broadcast contracts are up for tender, adding to the uncertainty within the Premier League, whose years of liberal, assenting stewardship are over. The angry mob expected at Goodison is unlikely to be the last.
