Chris Beesley opinion piece after Everton's long-suffering supporters suffered more away-day woe at the home of Arsenal
LONDON, ENGLAND - OCTOBER 24: Jordan Pickford and James Tarkowski of Everton applaud fans during the Premier League 2026/27 match between Arsenal FC and Everton at Emirates Stadium on October 24, 2026 in London, England. (Photo by Alex Pantling/Getty Images)
Jordan Pickford and James Tarkowski make sure to pay tribute to the Everton supporters who made the journey to Arsenal on Saturday
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Last week Everton chairman Dan Friedkin was advised to fly to Liverpool to ensure that his sale of the club goes smoothly. Even someone who used to work for the old neighbours from across Stanley Park could see that.
Christian Purslow, who served as managing director at Liverpool FC, managing director and head of global commercial activities at Chelsea and chief executive at Aston Villa, proclaimed on The Football Boardroom podcast with Henry Winter: “He likes his planes and if I was Dan Friedkin, I probably wouldn’t do it in my spitfire because it’s a long way from Rome to Speke airport, but I’d get on a plane to Liverpool. I’m genuinely concerned about this whole sale situation. I’ve mentioned the Newcastle comparable under Mike Ashley. I think that process dragged on for four or five years, because rich men don’t like losing money.”
“So, it worries me that you’re being asked to spend £800m just to give Dan Friedkin his money back, for the right to lose £40-50million every year, which you, the new owner, have to put in on top of your £800million. That isn’t a particularly sexy proposition to a very, very rich person who wants to buy a football club and make them better. So, I don’t think it’s going to be an easy sale.
“My key point for our audience today, and I’m coming to what I would do, and why I think Dan needs to get on a plane to Liverpool, is this could take some time. The one thing you can’t afford, when you own a football club, let alone when you’re trying to sell a football club, you cannot afford for the on-field to start drifting.
“They took a real risk in that summer window, leaving themselves thin, leaving themselves exposed to injuries. Just the sheer lack of numbers in that squad. If that team starts to drop down the league, getting this club sold for anything like £800million quickly is not happening. So, turning that on its head I think he needs to stabilise the situation.”
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Premier League owners have to speculate to accumulate and while The Friedkin Group have got Everton on a much surer financial footing after the chaos on and off the field of the Farhad Moshiri era, everyone knows that if you stand still in world football’s toughest domestic competition then you risk going severely backwards.
David Moyes performed a type of sporting alchemy on numerous occasions during his first spell in charge at Goodison Park, leading the Blues to nine top-eight finishes, including their highest-ever Premier League position of fourth, but while he has returned believing he is now a better all-round manager than then, more well-rounded given his vast experience in the game, he’s not a magician.
Until the final week of the summer transfer window, the business that Everton did all looked sound enough, but with their stay-away and now wantaway owners dramatically pulling the plug as the deadline approached, Moyes – who had been putting out warnings for several weeks before September 1 – has been left ridiculously shorthanded.
It doesn’t matter how nice the rest of your house looks if the roof is missing off the top, and that’s what the Blues squad is like now. Maybe you can get away with it for a while when the sun is shining but as we all know from this weekend, the autumn storms have now arrived and that’s before we get to the prospect of a bleak, mid-winter when injuries and suspensions could really kick in.
While aviation enthusiast Friedkin senior personally piloted former Everton striker Romelu Lukaku and former head coach Jose Mourinho into the Eternal City when they each joined Roma, flying visits to Merseyside now feel increasingly unlikely, despite advice from Purslow and many others. It’s incredible really but the multi-billionaire who has spent what to most of us is a fortune beyond our wildest dreams on obtaining a venerable institution that even someone who was once Anfield top brass described as “a very, very, very established historic football club,” can do so and yet seemingly have very little interest in it.
Dan Friedkin, who has agreed a takeover deal to acquire Farhad Moshiri's entire stake in Everton, is an accomplished pilot
Dan Friedkin, the Everton owner, is an accomplished pilot(Image: Luciano Rossi/AS Roma via Getty Images)
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We’ll skip over the on-field proceedings at the Emirates Stadium on Saturday afternoon. It was the type of Blues away game at Arsenal that this correspondent and so many Evertonians have sadly witnessed all too often over the years.
The upshot of the 2-0 victory for the hosts means that what was already Everton’s lowest points-per-game ratio at any Premier League rival now drops from 0.35 to 0.34. What struck me during my train journey to the capital was the dedication of the Blues’ legions of travelling supporters.
I was sat opposite a fan who was telling his pal how they’d be meeting up with a devoted overseas Toffee based in Switzerland who, in contrast to the club’s owner, now makes his way to games by aeroplane, while another he knows goes to all of the matches despite living in Dundee.
These are the people who make Everton special. Descending upon a corner of Islington to see the team they love play a match at a ground their fans have never tasted victory in against an opponent they haven’t beaten on their own turf for over 30 years.
That is where I beg to differ with Purslow and believe the Blues are actually a really attractive business proposition – for someone who actually has a clear vision and ambition. An owner, who like those loyal but long-suffering supporters, bothers to turn up and give Everton both the leadership and attention they deserve.
Dan Friedkin owns Everton and Roma
Dan Friedkin owns Everton and Roma(Massimo Insabato/Archivio Massimo Insabato/Mondadori Portfolio via Getty Images)