What a way to end the Premier League relegation battle. Everton managed to survive relegation for a SECOND STRAIGHT SEASON as they won 1-0 vs. Bournemouth, officially dooming both Leeds and Leicester City to the Championship.
I really can’t believe Everton managed to escape the rat traps again.
Everton pulled off another miraculous escape as they beat a down-tooled Bournemouth side 1-0 in front of their ravenous Evertonian fans, ensuring that the results in the Leicester City and Leeds United, respective, games didn’t matter, and they would be relegated regardless. And, though I’m glad for the Everton fans they’re staying up, even they would say the club and hierarchy doesn’t deserve another year in the Premier League.
As I said, I’m really shocked Everton and all of their useless board members, chairmen, CEOs, executives, owners, etc. survived the relegation rat traps for a second straight season as I thought they were destined to go down this year.
Out of Southampton (finished 20th; relegated), Leeds United (finished 19th; relegated), Leicester City (finished 18th; relegated), and Nottingham Forrest (finished 16th; safe), I wholeheartedly believed two of these four clubs would overtake Everton and the other two unfortunate members to cement their status as one of the 20 best clubs in all of England.
Yet, Southampton ended up getting relegated weeks ago, Leeds United buckled under the pressure of Big Sam’s defensive style of football, and their high-tempo style of the past, and Leicester City left it way too late to redeem themselves as they ended up getting relegated by finishing two points behind Everton, even though they finished with more wins (9), more goals scored (51), a better GD (-17), FA Cup-winning players, and a significantly higher wage bill (7th highest in England).
Though, in the end, Leicester losing 22 games out of 38 and failing to beat Everton four matchdays ago after nearly going up 2-0 has cost the side that won the Premier League just seven years ago, the FA Cup only two years ago, and was playing in European Semi-Finals a season ago.
The loss of beloved owner Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha 5 years ago this October really set this club back as his presence and business acumen allowed Leicester to overachieve and succeeded in the highest tiers of English football while operating on a relatively small budget.
His son, Aiyawatt Srivaddhanaprabha, just hasn’t been able to properly conduct the affairs of Leicester City football club at the highest level and also invest in the club properly (forsaking all squad investment to build a state-of-the-art training facility really looks stupid now), which has resulted in this squad dropping all the way from 8th to 18th in a year.
As for Leeds, the club just disintegrated after Marcelo Bielsa was UNJUSTLY sacked two years ago as he took a bunch of Championship level players (i.e.: Luke Ayling, Jack Harrison, Illan Meslier, Liam Cooper, Robin Koch, and Rodrigo) into topflight/Top-10 challenging players.
There was a reason why this club was languishing in the Championship and League 1 for 16 years prior to their 3-year Premier League stay, and we just saw the reason why: the players and executives are just simply not Premier League-level operators.
Heading back to Everton, the same can really be said about the players and executives of this football club as well.
Aside from a few exceptions (ex: Sean Dyche, Dwight McNeil, Abdoulaye Doucouré, Jordan Pickford, and maybe James Tarkowski and Conor Coady), this Everton side is plagued with Championship-level players, incompetent executives, dreadful owners, and one of the most divisive boards I’ve ever seen in football.
I mean, the Everton fans would agree as instead of celebrating like crazy for staying the Premier League until sunrise the next day, they were chanting “Fire the Board” and running onto the pitch with banners demanding the sale of the club. Everton is just as much of a mess as Leeds and Leicester, but they got lucky with the scheduling as they would have been relegated if they faced literally anyone else in the league yesterday.
Truthfully, none of these clubs deserve to stay up, but I’m glad for the Everton fans that it happened to be their club. At least Goodison Park will see one last season of Premier League football before the last remembrance of Everton glory is destroyed.
Images Source: Featured Image:
