DOMINIC KING: Constant cycle of bad decisions leaves Everton facing oblivion 

Lunchtime on the River Mersey and there, on the horizon, is the symbol of hope. Everton’s embryonic new stadium on Bramley-Moore Dock looks majestic, a spectacular addition to an already iconic skyline.

The idea that this £500million development will one day provide a stage for the club to play in the biggest games has had supporters dreaming for years but, today, as the Mersey Ferry meanders towards it, dreaming is the last thing anyone wants to do.

Andrew Griffiths, a Blue who had made the four-hour journey from his home in Aberdare, south Wales on Thursday for their defeat by Newcastle, is sitting on deck, wearing a blue hat and jersey. By his side are two bags packed with the fruits of an expedition to the club shop Everton Two in Liverpool One.

He is with his wife, Sally, but their mood is reflective of the state of play. The biggest relegation in the Premier League era — the biggest relegation since Manchester United in 1974 — is now a probability, rather than a possibility. Why dream when a living nightmare is unfolding?

Football is everything in this city. It governs the mood, dictates the atmosphere. The idea that there may not be a competitive derby for the first time since 1962 is an outrage but that is where we are. Like the Royal Iris that carries us on our journey, Everton literally are heading down the river.

Everton are at risk of relegation, with the club’s supporters livid at the actions of the board

‘It’s going to be the best stadium in the Championship, isn’t it?’ Andrew says, glumly, looking at Bramley-Moore. ‘We won’t win another game this season. I can’t see it now. The atmosphere was good against Newcastle but then they scored and it went out the window.

‘It’s just terrible and it’s all about the board. They have ripped the soul out of the club. Everything that we stood for has gone. It’s not a club — it’s a family. That’s what makes Everton different and special. To move forward, we need a new start and a new board.’

Soul is arguably the best word to associate with Everton. When everything is good, you can feel it deeply inside. There is authenticity and passion and when it is in sync, with management, players and supporters aligned, you sit inside Goodison Park and feel they can beat anyone.

But over time, fans have been worn down and as Newcastle took advantage of the chaos, it felt like their soul had been killed. A constant cycle of bad decisions from the board, a raft of performances that have been an affront — there is only so much misery people can take.

The £500m stadium at Bramley-Moore Dock will be superb, but will there be a team to match?

It could have all been so different, of course. When Farhad Moshiri became majority shareholder in 2016, his plan initially was to recruit Unai Emery and Monchi, the coach and sporting director who had led Sevilla to three Europa Leagues, following the sacking of Roberto Martinez.

With grand ambitions and the money to back up the plans, intermediaries were asked to explore the potential of making the first two signings ones that would make people sit up and take notice — they were asked to see how feasible it would be to sign Isco and Raphael Varane from Real Madrid.

Bill Kenwright (L) hasn’t been to Goodison Park since January 4, with he and Farhad Moshiri (R) having been heavily criticised by fans

Monchi met Moshiri at his residence in Mayfair but, after discussions, went cold on the idea of leaving Spain. Emery ended up joining Paris Saint-Germain and Everton, instead, appointed Ronald Koeman as manager and Steve Walsh as director of football.

The history of what followed has been well documented but nothing jars more than this, especially at a time when Everton are the lowest scoring team in the four professional divisions with 25 goals from their 33 games.

Everyone knew Romelu Lukaku was going to leave in the summer of 2017 but how can it be that they have signed 10 strikers in the time since for a combined total of £145.1m and yet are still so impoverished in attack?

Not being able to score is one of the reasons they are clinging on to their top-flight status by their fingertips. It often gets said Everton missed the chance to sign Erling Haaland when he was playing for Molde but, again, the reality is different.

Walsh spoke to Molde about how much the then 16-year-old Haaland would cost — Mail Sport understands it would have been more than £5m — and he was invited over to watch a Europa League game against Atalanta in November 2017 (Everton lost 5-1) but it never progressed as far as discussing personal terms.

Lukaku has never been replaced adequately and the culmination of it all was the January window, when the current director of football Kevin Thelwell had an exhaustive but fruitless month trying to land all manner of players from Danny Ings to Arnaut Danjuma but fell short.

Romelu Lukaku’s departure in 2017 hurt Everton and he still hasn’t been properly replaced

Everton can’t score in the Premier League and it was symptomatic of where they are at that a training game against Chester, from the National League North turned into another incident where negative headlines engulfed them.

The exercise was to get minutes for Dominic Calvert-Lewin and while they dominated possession in the fixture at Finch Farm, the club’s training base, they ended up losing 1-0, being hit with a late sucker-punch. 

Dyche insisted the result was not on his mind and things would have been different had Calvert-Lewin not hit the bar in the fourth minute but, still, not being able to break down a part-time team who were missing key players of their own highlighted shortcomings.

Emotions are running high at Everton and patience has snapped amongst supporters

Such was the anger on transfer deadline night, a group of fans waited outside Finch Farm to vent their fury. The levels of emotion were so high that officials needed to use a secret road to exit out of the back of the facility in their cars but it still led to some of them being pursued.

That was an incident where the threat of someone overstepping the mark was real but what has been a travesty is the idea, first perpetuated in January, that fans were somehow to blame for the root cause of the club’s problems. It is insulting, not to mention unfair.

But the moment that the board of directors, headed by Moshiri, chairman Bill Kenwright and chief executive Denise Barrett-Baxendale, became embroiled in a squabble with the fans, there was never going to be an amicable resolution, not when feelings have been running so high.

Kenwright, who hasn’t been to Goodison since January 3, wrote an open letter to a fan group last Friday. The timing and the tone of it all was wrong, widening division at a time when unity was needed. Nobody doubts Kenwright’s passion but, equally, what about the supporters?

All they ever wanted was a team which they could be proud of, a team that mirrored their beliefs of hard work and devotion to the badge. David Moyes was a master of finding players who embodied the club’s qualities but since he left a decade ago, those qualities have been diluted.

The appointment of Sean Dyche is February hasn’t managed to break the cycle of negativity

Some thought Sean Dyche’s appointment in February would lead to a resurrection of what they believe in but, after the initial bounce of two wins in three games against Arsenal and Leeds, the cycle of negativity has been impossible to break, ending up with Thursday night’s embarrassment. Dyche does not have a break clause in his contract if the worst materialises.

‘It all began so positively,’ says David Voakes in the foyer of the Titanic Hotel, which is just across the road from Bramley-Moore Dock. David had come over from Dublin on Wednesday, with his sons Cillian, 14, and Fionn, 11, to let them experience Goodison for the first time.

‘We met the players here before the game. I was talking to (assistant manager) Ian Woan and the boys were laughing at me, as I was like a starstruck kid. What a lovely guy! I shook his hand, he told me the squad was in the best place it had been since Arsenal and he said we would run all over Leicester on Monday.

‘But as soon as we conceded that first goal, it was like someone turned the volume down in the stadium. I think everyone had accepted our fate. The last few weeks, we had hope before Fulham and then we tried to have hope before Crystal Palace.

‘There was definitely hope before Newcastle, too, and the atmosphere was unbelievable. God, it’s just such a shame. I was standing in the doorway here yesterday, looking at the beautiful stadium being built, and I’m just wondering what the future holds.’

There’s no doubt Everton will face financial hardship in the Championship if they are relegated

Everyone does. The recent publication of the yearly accounts have cast a huge shadow over Everton’s future and there can be absolutely no doubt that they will face financial hardship in the Championship, if that is where they reside.

A fire sale will be necessary and men such as Calvert-Lewin, Jordan Pickford, Amadou Onana — who is the subject of interest from Arsenal, Chelsea and Newcastle — and James Tarkowski will be likely candidates to be sold, as will Jarrad Branthwaite, a promising young defender who has been on loan at PSV Eindhoven.

The construction of the stadium will continue (Everton are not scheduled to move in until the 2024-25 campaign and it might even be delayed until the following season) but the shimmering promise of it provides no comfort.

Everyone is culpable for this travesty and a tweet from an influential fan in the minutes after the Newcastle defeat articulated the feelings of the masses.

‘Conmen on the board, conman in the dugout, conmen on the pitch,’ they wrote.

Emotions are running high and patience has snapped. Evertonians have been let down too often, from the managers who never fully understood where they were to the players who arrived on massive contracts (James Rodriguez, for instance, was paid £275,000 a week for his one underwhelming season) and chose not to buy into what it all means.

Leicester on Monday is the next port of call. Again, the away end will be sold out, as it will be the following week at Brighton. There is, of course, still time to save themselves but if Everton were a boat, its hull would be riddled with holes. If it gets one more, it is likely to sink completely.