‘NO EXCUSE’; Optimal Circumstances for Everton to Revitalize Form Despite Pending Premier League Sanction

With the announcement of the sanction handed down to Nottingham Forest, we’re one step closer to knowing exactly how many points they and Everton will have shaved off the tally they’ve managed to earn on the football pitch and some of the fog was lifted from the relegation picture.

It’s still pretty murky, however, given that we don’t know if Forest will appeal — they almost certainly will but probably shouldn’t waste theirs or the Premier League’s time because they got off lightly and should just take the win — or whether they will get any points back if they do.

Likewise, Everton still have to go before a second independent commission, presumably this week if they haven’t already, and stand to be punished twice in the same season for the same offence covering 75% of the first sanction that was levied in November and reduced following appeal last month.

For those keeping track of the farcical implementation of spending rules that, thus far, have left the richest and most successful clubs in the land untouched and able to carry on with abandon while pummelling teams at the other end of the division, Leicester City look set to be charged with breaching Profitability and Sustainability Rules (PSR) but won’t receive their sanction until next season and stand to start their return season in the Premier League with a deficit.

And if all of that weren’t enough, the current rules, rejected as unfit for purpose but wielded in all their inconsistency and lack of transparency over the past few months, are set to be turfed out in favour of something more akin to Uefa’s Financial Fair Play rules. (You’ll be delighted to know that were that system in place today, Everton would fall foul of those rules this season as well, but only just!)

Everton social media has been alive with anger, confusion and indignation about the fact that Forest have been deducted four points while Everton were docked eight; and that the Premier League wanted to throw the book at the Toffees with the recommendation of a 12-point penalty but only recommended eight for Forest, even though the Trees’ breach was £15m higher than that of the Toffees.

Their commission judgement failed to use the benchmark used by the Appeal Board that heard Everton’s complaints — indeed, they explained that they couldn’t figure out the rationale the other panel used for pegging a PSR breach at six points — and came up with an entirely new framework that started at three, settled on six for a “serious breach” but gave two back because, unlike Everton, Forest admitted the breach early and co-operated fully with the Premier League’s investigation.

So rules that are supposed to be black-and-white and implemented to a transparent, open and fully understood sanctions framework are anything but. In fact, you get off lightly if you simply don’t put Richard Masters’ and his cohorts’ collective nose out of joint.

Of course Forest admitted their breach and co-operated. It was obvious to anyone who watched them amass an astonishing number of players across two transfer windows and spend around £250m in the process that they would breach the spending limits.

Despite the size of Everton’s losses before COVID exemptions and the like, the Blues’ case was not nearly so cut-and-dried. Despite making a royal mess of trying to remain compliant, Farhad Moshiri’s administration clearly felt that there was sufficient validity to their heads of mitigation that they could convince the League that they were under the ceiling and refused to plead guilty on that basis. Both the original Independent Commission and the Appeal Board clearly thought otherwise.

And here we are… with three different frameworks for doling out sanctions by three different entities and nothing to suggest that the commission that hears the second charge against Everton will adhere to any of the precedents set by those that came before it… or that the subsequent appeal panels won’t have entirely new interpretations of their own! The greatest league in the world, Ladies and Gentlemen…

None of it should matter, though, because, just as it was at times in 2021-22 under Frank Lampard and was when it came down to the potentially bitter but relief-laden end last season, Everton’s future is in their own hands. There are predictions and assumptions that can be made about how many points the Blues will get docked when the second commission’s verdict comes out in the first week of April but, unless the penalty is as severe as the first (in which case, a massive injustice has been perpetrated), it should be immaterial.

Everton have enough winnable games and, by extension, enough points on the table to render the vagaries of the Premier League’s PSR sanctions irrelevant. But it does require them getting their act together in most areas of the pitch and rediscovering the form that propelled them out of the relegation zone in the wake of the initial points deduction last November.

Anyone who has watched Sean Dyche’s men in recent weeks will know that there’s a big difference between identifying the problems and rectifying them. Lately, the manager has appeared to be bereft of solutions to his side’s attacking failings while seeing the defensive solidity for which he is renowned start to falter as well.

But with the benefit of a three-week hiatus, which will hopefully allow some bodies to heal and see the likes of Arnaut Danjuma and Idrissa Gueye return to fitness, and a team-bonding trip to Portugal, the players and coaching staff have had the opportunity to search some souls, reconnect as a group (inadvertently robust slaps to the head of Scottish full-backs notwithstanding), and return refreshed for the work ahead.

Again, translating that to the pitch when it matters in the heat of Premier League battle is the challenge but it is one Dyche needs to meet head-on if he and his team are to capitalise on a run-in that is, statistically, the most favourable in the Premier League over the final 10 matches.

They can afford to write off the final-day trip to the Emirates Stadium where they probably stand as much chance as they did hungover from the events at Goodison Park against Crystal Palace three days previously in May 2022 while also anticipating more misery in the Merseyside derby and concentrate on eight other fixtures against teams currently sitting in the bottom 11 of the table.

That inevitably means crucial games against our relegation rivals — indeed, the Blues have yet to play all of the other five sides that currently make up the bottom six around them, with four of those games, against Brentford, Forest, Burnley and Sheffield United, being at home.

That, of course, presents its own pause for thought given Everton’s home form this season (the Grand Old Lady has played witness to just three Premier League wins all season), the team’s psycholigical barrier when it comes to matches they’re expected to win, and their current woes in front of goal. (It’s why this author would have them train at Goodison running attacking drills over and over again to instill the muscle memory of scoring goals in actual stadium again.)

But there are points to be won on the road as well, starting at Bournemouth at the end of the month (when there will be no better time time to register our first Premier League win on the Cherries’ home turf) and later at Luton. Dyche’s side is certainly set up to do better away from home, providing it can start scoring again.

Put simply, Everton have no excuses because they couldn’t ask for better circumstances outside of that pending second sanction from the Premier League.

Two clubs are effectively already down in the form of the Clarets and the Blades, meaning the Toffees only have to finish with a better record than one other team to stay up. They play every team around them between now and the end of the season. They’ve been handed a three-week break to rest and get their heads right and, potentially, they could come out of it with only Dele Alli as unavailable. And even Dyche, as infamous as he is for not using all his options, must surely see the need to start leveraging every choice available to him.

There is talent in this team; they’ve shown that in flashes under Dyche. Now they have to believe it, internalise it and translate it into results on the pitch. If they can do that, independent commissions and points deductions be damned!

The Run-In