Everton appear rigidly organised to the last detail on the pitch, whilst things off the pitch are uncertain, in flux, and hard to keep your eyes off if you’re a fan.

The complete opposite of where the Albion are as I write this in February 2024.

Part one, off the pitch

The Toffees can boast a long history of top flight football. In fact, no club has played more seasons in the top flight of English football since the The Football League was founded

With a swanky new stadium almost finished too. Things should be bright and rosy for their fans, yet the situation is anything but.

Farhad Moshiri remains the owner, having taken over in 2016, but he’s keen to offload the club.

Since the financial backing of Alisher Usmanov (he’s a buddy of Putin) has been blocked (due to Russian sanctions) things have been getting tougher for Moshiri. It isn’t totally clear how money has been moved between the two, but with Usmanov’s spokesperson saying recently* ”Mr Moshiri and his companies are indeed indebted to Mr Usmanov and entities affiliated with him, we hope that the debt will be repaid after Mr Moshiri closes the sale of the Everton club” it seems that perhaps roubles have been propping the club up, and Moshiri is desperate to sell now that they’ve dried up.

Step forward 777 Partners, a US-based private investment company, who wish to purchase Everton and have allegedly already lent them around £160 million** in unsecured loans to keep the club afloat.

777 Partners are registered in Bermuda, who buy up assets, (mainly football teams who haven’t had great success on the whole in the pitch) and there’s more than an air of mystery about them.

Just like the Saudi takeover of Newcastle, this is taking some time, which would suggest that the Premier League suits have their concerns.

Everton fans are currently stuck between an owner who isn’t able to fund the club, and another one circling around, pumping money in and not yet able to pass the Premier League owners test. Which, to be fair, a very wealthy squirrel would get through as long as they hadn’t committed a very bad crime.

The ten point deduction for spending too much money over an average of three seasons certainly made everyone sit up. But due to the fact it’s averaged over three seasons they could effectively be punished three times.

They are hopeful of the appeal, but face another potential deduction for last season’s finances before the end of this season. Maybe £15 million for Maupay wasn’t the best call.

On a positive note, Everton in the Community is a top notch organisation doing great work on Merseyside, and the view at the new stadium from the away end might allow you to actually watch the game properly.

Compare all of this to their opponents on Saturday? We’re probably the best run club in the world. Fuck it, we are.

Part two, off the pitch

‘Building a team in your own image’ is a phrase often used when describing the work of a football manager and Sean Dyche is surely the epitome of this concept?

Newcastle are as smug as Eddie, and Brentford as high tempo as Thomas Frank, West Ham as dour and pallid as David Moyes, Arsenal as annoying and highly strung as Thunderbird Arteta.

But nothing says a team of former Chesterfield centre-halves as much as Everton and Dyche.

We all know what he’s about; football on a budget, with none of that fancy-dan passing out from the back. Oh no. Route one, running through brick walls, giving 110%, leave it all out there on the pitch. Why did we send Mason Holgate out on loan?!

Entertaining in press conferences and a good man-manager, most Everton fans seemingly don’t have a problem with Dyche.

His anti-football Burnley team turned us over a few years back by being the most successful time wasting side I’ve ever seen, yet scoring goals on the counter with ease.

Fast forward to last season’s home match against Everton and the 5-1 defeat in similar-to-Burnley fashion, and you could well be worried we’ll have a tough time again this weekend, in a game we’re big favourites to win.

But, we stuffed them away last season, with Pascal Groß racing clear to lift it over Pickford in one of the last games before Dyche took over. This season away we had four times as many passes, 80% of the possession (but less shots on target). Dunk was denied the goal of his career by VAR, and two deflections settled the game as a draw.

But De Zerbi has us beating bottom half teams in a way P**** never could, so I’m slightly more optimistic. Though let’s not forget he was thoroughly ‘Dyched’’ in that game last season; Roberto has a point to prove.

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Hopefully this time he and his team have worked out how to beat them. Compact, two banks of four. It’s not hard to know what to expect, it’s just breaking it down that’s the tricky part, and being ready for a scrap.

They’ll let us have the ball, but hopefully we can move it quick enough to break them down.

Overall by my calculations our record against Dyche (roughly speaking) is P20 W6 D10 L4.

We’ve been in somewhat rollercoaster form of late, but against Sheffield United we could see the difference having fit wide players made.

Expect frustration, at least 800 successfully completed passes, but mostly expect running through brick walls vs playing with big balls.

UTA

Mess. N1D

*Source: The Guardian

**Source: The Price of Football Podcast