All the recent talk about Everton possibly qualifying for Europe next season got me thinking about the summer transfer window. While there is still a chunk of the season left to play, it does feel like a big turnaround in how we see where the club is at present on the pitch. There is a feeling of excitement that has not been there in a long time, and maybe a hope or expectation among fans that the summer transfer window should be a busy one.
For me, with the current owners, I think this summer window will be driven by a very different sense of momentum this time around compared to previous summer windows. Many of the recent summer windows were simply about trying to keep an ailing business afloat. I think this window will be about continuing the work of the last twelve months. It will be about making the club recession proof and about steadying the finances, rather than spending big in any way. For me I think it is because we have owners who, for the first time in years, seem prepared to run the club in a modern way as a modern business.
I think the old school model of running a football club is dying out. American owners, money ball, tighter financial rules have all changed everything. Chairmen like Bill Kenwright, Dave Whelan at Wigan, Jack Walker at Blackburn, are now seen as dinosaurs. They’re consigned to the social history section of museums. Potential chairmen like Moshiri, with deep pockets but no specialist sports business sense, and others like him my well be put off taking what is essentially for them a huge gamble. Gone are the days now of begging, borrowing or stealing – a.k.a debt – to finance a transfer window. Gone are the days of a multi-millionaire or billionaire vanity or speculation project, where obscene amounts of money were gambled on building a squad.
We now have the Friedkin Group, Fenway sports at Liverpool and others like them. Everton is not their first rodeo and you get the sense that every penny spent on players will be justified and accounted for. The Freidkin Group has been touted as proper owners with proper business models and a sound financial basis. I’m not going to cover the finer points of all that, firstly because it’s the basis for a very different article and secondly because it’s well beyond my understanding of it. What I will do is assume that given what we have seen to date, there will have been targets, goals and budgets set at the start of last summer.
I’d assume reviews will be held at season’s end mid-May, and again in June at the end of the financial year. If we have achieved our targets and goals, or are ahead of schedule come June’s end, then you’d wonder how this will influence the summer transfer budget. If ahead of schedule, and current league placings compared to previous years would suggest this, then the club is self-financing better than expected. Ticket, food and merchandising revenue from the new stadium, compared to Goodison last season, will be reviewed to see if they are what was hoped for or better.
This would all mean that perhaps financial targets and budgets are better than expected, and it raises the question as to what to do with the extra money. Fans like me would rather see an increased transfer kitty. Modern day hard-nosed businessmen who own football clubs may say the debt comes first. For the Friedkin Group, who own several clubs, the decision may also rest with which club will yield more dividends from greater investment.
Roma are currently pushing for a Champion’s League place. They are also currently playing in the Europa League. They may well earn a Champion’s League spot or another Europa League place. Both competitions provide greater return than the conference League, which is where we will probably end up at best. It may mean that us Everton fans will need to settle for another season, including the summer and next January’s transfer window of continuing to stabilize and make do before any further major investment.
After all, huge sums of money have already been paid out by the Friedkin Group in the last twelve months on Everton as a club. We may need to take a back seat for now while the other clubs on their books get financial priority. Roma, with their version of European football, may simply be a couple of years further along in strategic planning and goal setting than we are. Indeed, for the Friedkin Group, the Conference League is probably an excellent means to an end in this regard.
You can play youngsters and fringe players in the competition to develop the existing squad, while at the same time broadening revenue streams and raising the brand with minimal outlay. This in turn will make the club more attractive to players in twelve month's time and also provide the extra cash with which to buy them. Why spend now when you can get better value in a year’s time.
To some degree though, I think that for the club owners, we are getting ahead of ourselves with talk of European qualification. For them, Europe would be an added bonus, a sign that their plan for the club is on track. But it may also be an unwelcome distraction. A reason to spend extra cash that they don’t feel the strategic plan can really afford to spend yet.
At present, I think stability still comes first. I think they will be influenced by clubs around us. If you study recent years’ league tables, mid table and lower table teams have generally stood still, There is no great difference in league placings, or European qualification, from one season to the next. I think that there is also no great difference in the quality of squads outside of the top six.
When I look at the league table at the time of writing, from Brentford in seventh to West Ham in eighteenth, there is very little to separate any of the sides. There is also very little difference in the amounts of money spent on transfers by the same list of clubs. We do not need to spend huge amounts to keep pace with the other mid to lower table teams next season.
While as a fan, I could argue that it wouldn’t take huge sums, spent correctly, to push ahead of many teams, our financial battles are still very much fresh in the memory. Stabalizing finances, avoiding another relegation battle, a steady hand, may well be the plans and watch words for our new owners for another season at least. I think there are lessons for the club’s owners to learn from mid and lower table clubs in Europe this season.
Teams like Forest, Palace and Spurs, who you thought would have kicked on this season, have had poor league campaigns. Qualifying for Europe has not meant maintaining momentum, stability and progression. Lunatic chairmen, several failed and sacked managers, the sale of your best players, has meant that these clubs have stagnated. They are no better off in the league, their squads are no better than they were last season, and there has been no real momentum.
Millions have been wasted on sacking several managers and coaching teams, millions that were meant to be banked from everything that was good about European qualification. Fans have not been happy, relegation, again, is a real possibility for Forest and Spurs, and owners have simply not made the best of the financial and strategic opportunities offered to them by Europe. Brentford, by comparison, while not in Europe, were expected to fade away once Thomas Frank left, and several of their top players were sold last summer. Instead, they replaced him from within, with someone already familiar with the system. They stuck to what appear to be sensible strategic plans and are on course for their best league finish and European qualification.
I would be interested to see how well they would do next season with European football, given their approach to running the club. I do think that for the owners, they have a manager in David Moyes, who, with another full season left in his contract, is the ideal person to continue with slow and steady, with stability and getting the foundations right.
For us fans, he’s a marmite manager, he’s frustrating, will always play the percentages, will be cautious, and may not always get the most out of the squad or chances provided him. For our sensible professional business men owners, he is the ideal manager to implement their strategic plans and business model for now. Performances have settled as the season has gone on. Last Saturday’s match against Arsenal showed what the manager can, and is, achieving with this current squad. While Moyes may say publicly that he would like x, y and z come this summer’s transfer window, I think he will understand, and be willing to work within, whatever strategic and financial plan the owners hand him.
Then there is the current squad itself. The clear out last summer was a necessary one but left a threadbare squad. There has been a decent rebuilding job completed to date. I’m not going to get into discussing individual players as this is a separate article. At a strategic level, rebuilding and improving the squad has revolved around building relationships with clubs like City and Chelsea, who have large squads of quality players that can be taken advantage of.
I think that the net spend was £100m last summer but am open to correction. While not a huge sum in today’s market, it was a big outlay for what were then new owners, considering what was spent only months earlier on buying the club and consolidating debt. There has also been a focus on signing younger players with potential. I think that the idea of being self-financing will still hold true. I wouldn’t be surprised if there was one stand out player being sold to finance the purchase of a couple of players.
For a club like Everton, without deep financial pockets, player trading is an important part of squad development. It’s stating the obvious and happens with most clubs. But for our owners, I just don’t think we’re at the stage yet where cash is just spent on players without the books being balanced in advance. The finances are just not there yet. I know that people have questions about how ambitious the new owners are for the club.
People want to know what the long term plan is, what the owners’ true motivations are for buying the club. The answer is we as fans just don’t know. An article like this one is never going to answer those questions. And in truth it’s not meant to. I’m guessing as to how one summer window may go, and what factors will feed into it. That’s all. Am I better off writing a review at the end of August? Maybe. But with football, for both owners and fans, nothing is ever certain, or perfect. Hopefully, the summer window improves the squad without bankrupting the club.
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