Pat Nevin shares ‘Frightening’ Everton concern as £500m point raised
Pat Nevin fears what could happen at Everton should David Moyes suffer relegation this season.
The Friedkin Group showed their ruthless side at Goodison Park by sacking Sean Dyche hours before the 2-0 win against Peterborough United in the FA Cup last Thursday (9 January).
While Moyes quickly signed a two-and-a-half-year deal to return to Merseyside, ex-Blue Nevin, while approving of the appointment, revealed to Sports Mole (15 January) that the financial landscape of English football could cripple Everton should they be sent to the Championship.
He said: “The difficulty is, in times gone past, I would have said: ‘David Moyes, spot on, right man, new owners, bags of money, party time’. Right? That’s what I’d have thought, but it’s not the way football works now.
“It’s just a change now, and the change is you’ve got PSR, you’ve got rules about finances, you could want to invest £500m, and you can’t. It’s because of the rules, so the problem you have is not, is David Moyes a good enough manager? He is. Are Everton a big enough club? They are. Is it a good enough stadium? It is.”
Nevin added: “It’s as important as last season and the season before (to survive), but these two or three seasons have been as important as any, almost ever, because of the debt, because of the ownership problems, because of the new stadium, because of everything.
“Because if you find yourself going down and you can’t get back up – and we all know how difficult the finances and PSR is – if you can’t get back up and you’re a club the size of Everton with that new stadium, that’s frightening. That’s really frightening for everybody with the finances that are involved with that.
David Moyes must secure Premier League survival at Everton
Although TFG are expected to bring “considerable investment” to Everton in the coming years [Sunday Mirror], the threat of the Premier League’s Profit and Sustainability rules remains rife.
Sean Dyche learned all too well the damage of PSR during his two-year stint with the Blues as he miraculously secured a 15th-place finish last term despite being hit with two point deductions for breaching PSR totalling eight points.
Now, Moyes takes over a side lingering one point above the relegation zone in January and primed for another relegation dogfight this season.
While David Ornstein has mooted the Toffees could be in line for an imminent transformation of the squad in the winter transfer window, Kevin Thelwell must operate again under the tight PSR constraints.
The current crop at Goodison Park is hanging on by a thread in the Premier League, and although the managerial change arrives at a pivotal time, safety is far from certain.
Moyes cannot be expected to work with the same front line that boasts the abysmal record of being the second-worst goal-scorers in the division.
However, remaining in the black will be the utmost priority for TFG as they work towards clearing the monumental debt left over by former majority shareholder Farhad Moshiri – their long-term future and, most importantly, Premier League security depends on it.
In other Everton news, Cesc Fabregas wants a Toffees player at Como.
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