Everton need proof of progress to back up the promises

Hard proof of progress under Farhad Moshiri will be required eventually

Back in 1994, when Peter Johnson promised to invest £10million in Everton, there was a significant shift in the décor of Goodison Park, a stadium where the lounges and function spaces for years had felt more like those at a haunted hotel.

“It was another example of the pervading sense of torpor,” wrote Jim Keoghan in his book about the era, Highs, Lows and Bakayokos, and this prompted Johnson to spruce up the place; renaming rooms and decorating them with images reflecting the club’s history and traditions. This, though, was merely a short-term solution for Johnson, who identified that for Everton to return to where they once were at the top of the league, a future would have to be found at a different location.

“Goodison is and was a Grand Old Lady,” he said. “But any club that had aspirations to be part of the European elite had to have a bigger and better stadium. I visited the likes of the San Siro and the Nou Camp and came away determined that Everton had to have something along those lines.”

At the cost of £10m, Johnson proposed a 60,000 all-seater facility on the edge of the city, one with four tiers and scope for hundreds of executive boxes where Everton would make the bulk of their money back. Johnson pitched it as an opportunity to “put Everton at the forefront of European and world stadia.” He would call it “the chance of a lifetime.”

Everton, though, would remain where they were and a quarter of a century later, they are still there. It is, of course, a different owner now trying to find solutions and there are many things that separate Farhad Moshiri and Johnson, not least levels of financial commitment.

Though Everton would win the FA Cup twelve months after Johnson's first involvement - and that is the club’s last trophy - he will be remembered as the Everton owner that could not stimulate the cash to deliver on his biggest promises. The warning signs were there in the first summer when Everton targeted players of prestige such as Oliver Bierhoff and Martin Dahlin but ended up with just one signing in Vinny Samways.

The on-pitch change under Moshiri, by comparison, has been radical. Included in Everton’s starting XI against Bournemouth was Seamus Coleman, and he was the only player involved in the squad who was signed before Moshiri came along, pledging the money to re-design what was an ageing team, particularly an ageing defence.

Off the pitch, Moshiri has done similar things to Johnson; sprucing up the external face of the stadium, particularly in the Phillip Carter Stand, where the name 'Goodison' currently stretches impressively across the roof at night in blue neon lighting. Everton’s business operation has also expanded into the Liver Building and in terms of infrastructure, it is told, that the club is working from a much more solid and creative base than it was before.

When Moshiri insists, however, that “I have spent £250m on turning a museum into a competitive outfit,” as he did at the Philharmonic Hall during Everton’s Annual General Meeting this week, he undermines the trust in what he is doing because it is simply not the case.

The team is in the same position when Moshiri walked in, albeit with fewer points. Bournemouth, in a few ways, were an ideal opponent to illustrate what has happened because since Everton’s victory over them at this stadium last season. Bournemouth, a team that had lost ten of their previous thirteen matches, could have gone above Everton had they capitalised on their first half dominance here and recorded a victory.

Presently, it feels as though Evertonians are believing in Moshiri because of his promise of a new stadium. They understand that building on a site in the docks is complex, that time will be needed to see the project through and allow him to deliver on an issue that has hung over the club for so long.

Farhad Moshiri has promised much but Everton remain a club in transition (Getty)

Hard proof of progress will be required eventually, though. Everton would win ugly against Bournemouth. Their second half performance was more spirited and forceful than the first but it never felt like they were really in control of what was happening. Moshiri says he will not spend to the same levels of before but what happens if other clubs that aspire to be in the Champions League do? It remains a club and a team that needs more than decorative changes to shift it towards where those making the key decisions and promises seem to believe it can go.