Five ways Everton can improve recruitment

THEY were just 10 words, but they served as a damning self-indictment of the reign of chaos Farhad Moshiri presided over at Everton that resulted in eight managers in as many years, the lowest equivalent points total in the club's history that brought them to within a single goal of a first relegation in 72 years plus an unprecedented brace of points deductions in a season for PSR rule breaches.

- By CHRIS BEESLEY

When apologising in the summer of 2022 to loyal but long-suffering Blues, who were still recovering from the 3-2 comeback win over Crystal Palace to secure their Premier League status in their final home game, Everton's then majority shareholder admitted: “We have not always spent significant amounts of money wisely.”

The repercussions of such actions would menacingly come galloping towards Goodison Park like the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse during the 2023/24 campaign with those aforementioned sporting sanctions which would have taken the Blues down had they been meted out just 12 months earlier.

While the long wait for results relating to Manchester City's 115 financial charges continues after reports in recent days on yet more delays, whatever the final verdict ends up being, at least the Etihad Stadium outfit that had been derided as being chronic underachievers before their petrodollar-fuelled success under Sheikh Mansour transformed them into football lottery winners who have used their nouveau riche status to buy their way to eight Premier League titles, three FA Cups, six League Cups, one Champions League, one UEFA Super Cup and one FIFA Club World Cup.

Everton's 'booby prize' in contrast was the status of there never being another club to have spent so much to become so bad.