Everton’s Spending Couldn’t Break The Premier League’s Glass Ceiling, Now They Might Fall Through Its Trapdoor

Everton’s loss in the Merseyside derby against Liverpool at the weekend has left them in the Premier League relegation zone for the first time in over two years. The Toffees are two points behind Burnley with a game in hand, but given their more difficult run-in, relegation is a very real possibility.

It’s easy to blame current Everton manager Frank Lampard, who has no experience turning around the fortunes of a relegation threatened side, or previous manager Rafa Benitez who only managed to win one league game between the end of September and his sacking in January.

But Everton’s struggles this season though are something that every team between 7th and 17th in the league goes through at some point. No matter how well-run a team is, the sale of a key player, or a few injuries like to Dominic Calvert-Lewin, Yerry Mina, or several of Everton’s midfielders can derail a season.

The two teams above Burnley are proof of that: Leeds United would be doing a lot better this season if not for a heap of injuries, including to England internationals Kalvin Phillips and Patrick Bamford, while Aston Villa, despite their summer spending, are still struggling to replace Jack Grealish.

Everton’s current problems stem from their inability over the past half-decade to get out of the 7-17 mid-table group, and into the elite group of teams above them, despite throwing away a fortune trying to make that leap.

One statistic that’s doing the rounds is how Liverpool were below Everton in the league when Jurgen Klopp took over at Anfield in 2015, and have since won the Premier League and Champions League while spending less money than Everton over the same time period.

While the first part of that is technically true, Klopp was appointed early enough in the season that the gap between then 7th-place Everton and 10th-place Liverpool is rather meaningless, not to mention that Liverpool were at a bit of a low-point in between their title-race under previous manager Brendan Rogers and their success under Klopp, while Everton have only managed one top-5 finish since 2009.

The second part of that statement, regarding transfer fees, does appear to be accurate though, and shows not only how poorly Everton have spent that money, but also how hard it is for mid-table teams to spend that money well.

Based on the fees quoted on transfermarkt.com. Everton have spent around $695 million on transfer fees compared to Liverpool’s $670 million since Klopp arrived at Anfield.

Despite league position, Liverpool had a stronger team than Everton at the start of that period. Although Liverpool did need a rebuild, the likes of Roberto Firmino, Philippe Coutinho, Jordan Henderson, Joe Gomez and Emre Can were among the players at Anfield when Klopp arrived, so even if Everton spent more than Liverpool, a lot of that spending would have been necessary in any case to try and narrow the gap between the two sides.

But Everton spent a huge amount on transfer fees to try and become a top side, and the figures spent become even more mind-boggling when soccer inflation is taken into account.

According to CIES Football Observatory, between 2014 and 2019, soccer transfer fees grew by around 26% every year.

That makes the $218 million that Everton spent in 2017/18 season roughly equivalent to half a billion dollars in today’s market. Out of all their arrivals that year, only goalkeeper Jordan Pickford has been consistently good, and most of those signings have either left the club or are nowhere near the first team.

Transfer fees are only part of the spending picture. Player salaries traditionally have more of a correlation with success, and a top player like Kevin De Bruyne can cost well over $100 million in wages alone over a five-year contract.

But when it comes to salary, Everton have also spent a fortune. According to Sporting Intelligence’s Global Sports Salary Survey, in 2019, Everton’s average salary of $5.25 million was higher than Tottenham Hotspur’s average salary, and not too far behind Liverpool’s $6.5 million.

So how are Everton struggling so much despite such high spending?

One possible reason is they haven’t spent their money strategically. While Liverpool have a lower total spend since Klopp took charge, they’ve spent that money on fewer, high-value transfers. Liverpool have bought 12 players for more than $20 million, but ten of those cost more than $40 million, and three cost more than $50 million. Everton on the other hand bought 19 players for more than $20 million but only two of those cost more than $40 million.

While Everton are unable to attract $40-million+ tier players, signing players in the $20-40 million range can mean you spend a lot while not adding much quality. If the average Premier League player costs $20 million, then two $25 million players only add $10 million of quality to the starting line-up, whereas a $50 million player adds $30 million of quality.

This is why it was so hard for Aston Villa to replace Jack Grealish last summer, and why Everton wasted a huge amount of money after selling Romelu Lukaku to Manchester United in 2017. The problem for clubs like Everton and Aston Villa is no matter how much money they get from the sale of a top player, they often can’t attract a player who is proven to be as good as the player they lose. Out of Everton’s current squad, probably only Brazilian international Richarlison is in the elite category.

Sometimes scouting and good coaching will turn a $20 million player into a $50 million player, Everton have managed this in the past with John Stones, but with the hoarding of top talent by the bigger clubs, it is hard to do this consistently.

For all Everton’s spending, many of the signings were players on the way down in their careers, heading to Goodison Park after failing to make the grade at a bigger club, making it unlikely that Everton would be able to sell them later for a higher transfer fee.

Everton could have spent all that money more wisely and given themselves a better chance of making that jump to the elite if they had a clear strategy though.

Much has been made of how Manchester United have struggled to replace Sir Alex Ferguson, but Everton have struggled just as much to replace David Moyes, who led the Toffees for more than a decade before moving to Old Trafford as Ferguson’s replacement.

For clubs to be successful, they need to have money, but they also need a plan, and they need to stick to that plan. Since Klopp took over at Liverpool. Everton have gone through six permanent managers before they hired Lampard.

No manager since Roberto Martinez, who left the club in 2016, has managed more than 70 games and Everton’s six permanent managers have all preferred very different styles of play. Ronald Koeman dreamed of getting Everton to play like Barcelona, but nine league games after his 2017 summer spending spree, he was replaced by Sam Allardyce, who is often seen as the antithesis of Barcelona’s tiki-taka.

Each manager also brought in their own staff, who subsequently left when the manager got the sack. All this staff turnover has meant so many of those $20-30 million signings have underperformed or found themselves unwanted by the next manager, and subsequently gone down in value.

This season, all that waste from not having a strategy has finally caught up with Everton. Their finances have gotten worse and worse. They have seen some of the Premier League’s largest ever pre-tax losses and could only spend less than $3 million last summer, mainly bringing in free transfers. Their poor finances might be the reason why they sold Lucas Digne, one of their biggest assets, this winter. Their problem now though is they have far too many players on high wages who other sides don’t want. And if Everton were to get relegated, those huge salaries could really spell trouble for the club.

It’s not the first time Everton have been around the bottom of the table, although usually their worries come a lot earlier in the season than this one. But while they spent a fortune on players, this money wasn’t spent well enough to get themselves out of the mid-table group of clubs that have occasional relegation scares.

And this time, they are so close to the edge that they could drop off it and end up falling out of the Premier League.