Ian Wright shares WhatsApp message received from Everton source close to Bill Kenwright
Ian Wright has revealed he was in contact with somebody high up at Everton the morning of the Toffees’ 2-1 Premier League defeat to Southampton.
The former Arsenal striker had suggested that any new owner may be put off buying the club due to the alleged incidents which may have occurred over the past two weeks (Match of the Day, 30m 20s, 14 January).
Everton’s board were urged to stay away from Goodison Park for the fixture against the Saints and CEO Denise Barrett-Baxendale was reportedly placed in a headlock after the defeat to Brighton.
Wright has since revealed he received a message on Saturday morning (14 January) from someone high up at the club which portrayed the fans in a bad way.
“The morning of it all happening, I got a WhatsApp message from someone high up at the club, who knows Bill Kenwright very well,” said the Match of the Day pundit (Wrighty’s House Podcast, 17 January).
“The correspondence he gave to me made me angry with Everton fans at that stage and I thought I am going to have to say something. I want them to be peaceful and I want to apologise because I should have said allegedly and now what I want to see is some proof.
“One thing for sure is that the relationship between the board and those fans is over because they really tried to throw those fans under the bus after the frustration that they’ve gone through. They tried to deflect it onto the fans because they’ve been so incompetent in their work.”
Bad look
The whole situation at Goodison Park is a complete mess at the moment. The board have made these accusations with no evidence to back any of the incidents up. There’s a huge amount of frustration at the club and that’s largely down to the decisions they’ve made.
Instead of trying to deflect some of the blame, they should be looking to front up to the criticism which has been directed their way and look to move forward in a positive manner.
At the moment, the club need to pull together to try and drag Frank Lampard’s side away from the bottom three. The teams around Everton are improving rapidly and unless something changes in the next couple of weeks Championship football is a real possibility.
The prospect of playing in the second tier is one which cannot be considered with the new stadium set to be completed for the start of the 2024/25 season.