How many points clear of relegation Everton ended up in each of the last five seasons
Everton have received a 10-point deduction after being found to have breached the Premier League’s profit and sustainability rules.
It’s the biggest sanction in Premier League history and will be enforced immediately, after the ruling referred the Merseyside club to an independent commission back in March.
The ruling sees Everton fall to 19th in the table – but they’re only one win away from dragging themselves out of the relegation zone.
The timing could be much worse, given that the club appear to have turned a corner of late, while newly-promoted sides Burnley, Sheffield United and Luton have each only won one of their 12 outings to date.
“The Club believes that the Commission has imposed a wholly disproportionate and unjust sporting sanction,” responded Everton in a statement posted on the club’s official website. The announcement went on to state that they’ll be appealing the decision.
We’ve taken a look at how many points clear of the relegation zone Everton ended up in each of the last five seasons to get an idea of the impact the points deduction could have.
2018-19 – 20 points
Everton consistently occupied that ‘best of the rest’ spot of seventh/eighth from 2016 to 2019.
In the 2018-19 campaign under Marco Silva, they were entertaining enough, if not somewhat scattergun, as evidenced by following a 6-2 home defeat to Tottenham by a 5-1 victory over Burnley either side of Christmas.
As was typical throughout that era, fans might have been disappointed that the considerable spending in the transfer market didn’t translate into pushing the big six harder.
But they spent the entirety of the campaign in the comfort of midtable and never looked in any danger at all of going down.
2019-20 – 15 points
Having lost five of their opening eight matches of 2019-20, Silva faced pressure – and eventually lost his job after a 5-2 Merseyside derby defeat left the Toffees in the relegation zone in early December.
But they barely spent any time in the dropzone and a notable upturn in results following the appointment of Carlo Ancelotti saw the club end up a respectable 12th, miles clear of relegated trio Bournemouth, Watford and Everton.
2020-21 – 21 points
Ancelotti’s only full season at Goodison Park saw the club end up on 59 points, their highest tally of the past six seasons.
There were excellent periods – particularly four-match winning streaks in September and December – but they just lacked the consistency to genuinely challenge for European qualification.
Marquee signing James Rodriguez had some magic moments but his form faded as the season went on. Still, there were green shoots of positivity in the Ancelotti era, which begs the question of where they’d be today had he not returned to Madrid.
📆#OnThisDay 3 years ago, Everton signed James Rodríguez on a free transfer from Real Madrid.
🔵26 Games
⚽️6 Goals
🅰️9 Assistspic.twitter.com/jx2g8kB4Xp— 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗧𝗼𝗳𝗳𝗲𝗲 𝗕𝗹𝘂𝗲𝘀 (@EvertonNewsFeed) September 7, 2023
2021-22 – Four points
There had long been questions over Everton’s recruitment and competency behind the scenes; the rot of multiple bad decisions really began to set in during the 2021-22 campaign.
Former Liverpool manager Rafael Benitez had the pedigree but he never won the fans over following a series of underwhelming performances and results.
Things hit a nadir at the turn of the year. Benitez was sacked in mid-January and successor Frank Lampard took time to turn things around as Everton began 2023 with eight defeats from nine league outings.
They were staring into the abyss and in the relegation zone come April but turned things around by holding their nerve winning four of their last nine games come the run-in.
Everton ended up 16th on 39 points, four clear of relegated Burnley.
2022-23 – Two points
Lampard’s Everton were unable to maintain any kind of momentum from the previous campaign’s strong finish, kicking off 2022-23 with a winless run of six games.
Successive wins over Southampton and Everton offered brief hope that Lampard might be able to turn things around but further poor streaks saw him lose his job, just over a year from taking over from Benitez.
There was a distinct sense of deja vu to the day before; another relegation battle with Leeds, another mid-season firefighter job.
Sean Dyche was the man tasked with saving Everton’s skin, and just as Lampard had before him he struggled to make an instant impact before eventually – narrowly – steering them to safety in the end.
A final-day 1-0 home victory over Bournemouth resulted in Everton staying up by the skin of their teeth, two points ahead of Leicester City. Anything but a win and they’d be in the Championship right now.
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