Rot started when

[andy peake]

23rd May 2021. Lost 4-2 to Spurs. Had just won the FA cup but again finished 5th in the Premier League and again just missed out on the Champions League. We’ve been going slowly downhill ever since.

[Heathrow fox]

10 minutes ago, reynard said:

Yes for me too. Before that we were playing exciting attacking football. That defeat was a sobering affair and appeared to change our approach to the way we played.

Confidence was knocked for both players and manager and I don't think we ever really got over it. Seems a bit mad to pinpoint the start of the demise to when we were riding high in the league but I do genuinely that day was the turning point.  

I genuinely thought that Leicester had a reallly good chance of coming 2nd or 3rd before the MC Liverpool games.Not to win the PL but to come in a medal place.They played the best football I had ever seen a Leicester team play.Plus such a solid settled squad.2nd or third would have looked so good on the clubs cv.
You are right to say they were never the same again after that mauling

[Sampson]

I think the summer of 2021 after the FA Cup win was a big one. We had big signs before that after bottling the CL, but we still had a good spending summer where we spent enough that we easily should’ve bought some good players in to revitalise us with that money.

 

Instead we had the worst transfer window in our history and spent £70mil on Patson Daka, Jannik Vestegaard, Soumare Ryan Bertrand and decided we didn’t need to replace Schmeichel because Danny Ward (who we’d spent a further £12mil on a year or two before) was good enough.

 

I mean £82mil for 5 players I’m not convinced are even good enough for League One. 

Edited 18 April by Sampson

[Dan]

When they banned me  

[urban.spaceman]

5 years ago today. 

[LeePhilpottsBaldSpot]

I think the start of COVID. I don't think we've ever felt the same since.

 

FA Cup win was obviously a massive high, but that was very much with the foundations laid before covid and a little bit of good luck.

[Bert]

8 hours ago, Soar Fox said:

When we let Schmeichel go. Not only losing an incredible goalkeeper we also lost our last genuine remaining leader who had very high standards. 

This is it. 

[coolhandfox]

Combination of things, losing the like of Ricardo, JJ and Fofana to injures when in prime from resulting spend money on replacement we didn’t need. Both JJ and Ricardo were on fire, and could have been sold for big money.

 

Spending big fee and wages on players that didn't improve us, Soumare, Daka, Vestergaard, Perez, Praet etc.

 

Losing players on frees, Tielemans, Soyuncu, Perez, Praet who cost near on 100m 

 

Move away from the one big sale a year model.

 

 

[don_danbury]

the start of the 2022 season when we bought in a load of shit and wasted big money on them

[Lesta Legend]

1 hour ago, reynard said:

Steve Walsh was amazing for us but that was part of a trio really when he was at his best. I don't think you'd find many Everton fans missing him.

I agree the trio worked and is what brought us the success and not KP, they simply got it right by rehiring them and backing them. Our recruitment is clearly now mostly reliant on agents and the structure and expertise they built has long left and that includes his little ‘black book’. We almost got lucky with Lookman but the powers that be fcked that up too. 
 

As far as Everton are concerned is got signing spot on Pickford, lookman etc. His issue was he was never working with alongside a manager who saw it the same way, koeman. A few of the disastrous signings were Koeman’s, Klaassen & Martina for example. Everton fans also convinced Rooney was a Kenwright pick. 
 

I think his time there was destined to fail as it was a mess across the whole structure. Chansiri another incompetent foreign owner now gone and Everton have slowly changed their fortunes around. 

[Clogger_]

9 hours ago, huddersfieldfox said:

Does anyone have a genuine opinion when the rot started. I'm not asking for years back because I genuinely thought we would go back up this season but its now looking like it's the opposite. 

What changed the players mindset, when did the rot start to creep in and why are our players so weak mentally and physically 

When Pearson left

[jimmy7587]

The press conference where Brendan spoke about how excited he was for big investment in the squad the following summer. This for me was a moment where it could have gone in another direction. But fundamentally this showed the disconnect between him and the board, who were looking down the barrel of financial gloom for not delivering what they set out for and budgeted for… European football.

 

Losing Kasper that summer as a keeper and leader was a big one. Replacing him with Danny Ward, as we all know, didn’t go well. 
 

More recently, giving Ayew the #9 shirt and believing he would replace our GOAT without any investment just shows how little they respected the Championship.

[moseeds]

Brendan throwing the team under the bus. Absolutely no need for it. Those players are still here to do this day. 

[Getin]

A father believing and probably hoping against his own better judgement that his son was both competent and intelligent.

[fatmando]

As others have said...It was when Vichai passed 100%. That's when the rot started at the very top. Eating us like cancer ever since.

 

Rudkin would never have been so powerful. Rogers would have gone earlier and so on and so on.

 

That devastating tragedy has led to this point.

 

The ups. Fa cup etc, rot was losing some battles against the good leftover. But winning the war.

 

2 more seasons of rotting yet though I think.

 

Sad and depressing. 

[Chelmofox]

Like a few have said, you dont notice the rot until is starts to show. 

 

Businesses that don't adapt fail.  Football is no different and if you are set in your ways you will struggle. This coupled with FFP and long player contracts, means that getting things right is very important. Think about it - Patson Daka will see out his contract here after being paid heinous amounts of money, and the only return to us in massive debt. That failure alone would sink many businesses. That just one of our mistakes.

 

Unless you can consistently spend your way out of trouble (big 6 - minus spurs i suppose) you have to have a model that the whole club hierarchy buys into and that everyone is striving towards. In the modern age, this has to be based on data intelligence and moving forward - AI. You have to use data to source what you want, use clever business networks to know how/when to get what you want, and have smart people to execute and run/build/adapt daily. WE HAVE NONE OF THIS.

 

The only thing we have had is money. That money could have been invested into the same systems you see at Brighton, Bournemouth etc. That money could have been used to increase the wealth of the business after our crazy success to generate more money to make everything better. Could you image how Brighton would have cashed in after a title win!?!  Instead, we chose to spend it on players and staff who had no data to back up those decisions. The list of very expensive duds that even children could identify as not good enough is frightening. 

 

So this just brings me onto leadership. The people at the top are poor businessmen, poor strategists, not data people and do not operate in any smart fashion. When things aren't right, the cultural imbalance is toxic. Failure was just waiting for the perfect storm.

 

Top had a bit of a 'festish' for Brendan Rodgers. For a while, this looked like a smart move and led to some success (although, you can argue there was significant failure in there before we saw the rot). However, Brendan came at a price (a bit of a medusa for Top). Brendan, was a bit of a fraud who had media connections and a reputation that players could buy into, but he was actually on a downward turn in his career and was about to be exposed as dated. Brendan didnt believe in data analytics, using established existing networks, being challenged or thinking differently. Brendan believed in Brendan. Brendan didnt care for cash flow,  forecasting and planning etc, and Top obliged.  We spent big and failed hard once the wheels fell off and Brendans frailties were exposed. What made this worse, is there was nothing left behind to pick up the pieces.   

 

I think Top saw his 'work' as appointing Brendan. Beyond that, i genuinely think he doesn't know what else he can do. When you need to adapt - you need options, but after sacking Brendan all our recruitment has been outright rotten or pure luck (Maresca). Brendan going wrong ruined anything Top had left to make this work. Once Brendan was gone, there were simply bones left behind. A well run business would have mitigated for all this risk, and been prepared for it. From what i undertand, this business didnt even sack him. Brendan literally had to beg to be sacked. Again - our leadership obliged and paid his severance in full.

 

Someone said a while ago that the KP group and this family were gamblers. Everything you see in the running of our club tells you that is the case. Top decided to put all his chips on Brendan - several times. We've not recovered since. 

Edited 18 April by Chelmofox

[JonesLCFC]

In the summer of 2021 after we signed Daka, Soumare, Vestergaard and Bertrand for millions. Sickening. 

[TeamRocket]

For me personally when we got rid of some back room staffs for no reason and then not getting someone to fill there spots(basically when we got rid of NP hard work love CR for what he did but we all know that was still NP team and style). Truely think having a good backroom staff is as important as having good manager. Only way we repair our identity is find NP2.0 to rebuild or we just stay as dung city fc and play some wannabe style.

[lookwhaticando]

I still maintain it begins when we backed Rodgers in the summer before 21/22. 
 

All those signings. None of the outgoings as usual to balance the books. It was a massive punt. 
 

After having been backed, Rodgers then turned around and bitched about the quality of the players at his disposal when Forest dumped us out of the cup. To turn around and complain about your lot then was a true marker that accountability had left the building. 
 

Rodgers would happily take the plaudits for the FA Cup win, absolutely will not accept the role he played in the subsequent slide in standards - standards that he himself bitched about, all the while continuing to select absolute passengers week in week out. 
 

We gave him too much, and everything fell apart after that. 

[Headcase]

I cant believe nobody as said the night of the helicopter crash.

C.P brought some ok players...but the slip started then not noticeable until rodgers spunked all the money on gash and expensive wages , his son did alright out of it though as did southampton ect.. yes we had a few good seasons, but we still had legends,  riccy and the likes of madison signed under CP ... but after rodgers it was a massive of the cliff dive in my opinion...made worse by an owner that was not intetested and gave a knobba like rudkin the reigns, because he couldnt be fecked.

Edited 18 April by Headcase

[Clogger_]

Spiralling by the time Vichai died. Naive to think otherwise. Truth be told we've had one exceptional manager in living memory (Nige), a lucky general (Claudio) and only one other manager who led us with any integrity or competency (Puel). Everyone else wants nuking

Edited 18 April by Clogger_
Shakey led with integrity, RIP

[Blue ROI]

2018 - The departure of Banter Ben.

 

[Simonb]

2021 summer. Won the FA Cup but finished fifth.. missed out on the chanpions league 2nd year running and desperately needed the money coming in. Didn't make a big sale that summer and allowed players to start running down their contracts. 

 

Overpaid on ridiculous signings such as Jannik and one or two others.. was the beginning of promising Rodgers proper funds and not backing it up and then signing dross

 

And to top it off lost our Captain Morgan to retirement so no leader on the dressing room

[LCFCJohn]

So many people mentioning the CL misses, Forest FA Cup defeat, Rodgers and even the passing of Vichai and I think all this misses the point of the question.
 

As someone said earlier in the thread, when the rot starts or sets in is earlier than when it becomes visible. The above moments or situations are all when it became visible. You have to look back further to when changes were made that started to turn the tide and begin the process of the rot which dates back to the summer of 2016 after the title. You could even go back a year earlier if you were being harsh, but 2016 was pivotal and when the club changed direction. In terms of the structure of the club, it has been downhill ever since.

[Dames]

23 hours ago, Tuna said:

As far as this season was concerned, last summer. Not sacking Van Nistelrooy, taking far too long to appoint Marti, and failling to rebuild the squad. A sensible managerial appointment, 3 or 4 championship ready signings and a few more departures and we would be nowhere near relegation. We approached this season with callous indifference and arrogance and look where it got us.

Controversial opinion but if we kept Ruud and gave him the summer we’d likely be sniffing around the play offs and would have developed some of our youth prospects. 
 

We wouldnt have had players like Winks and Vestergaard back near the team stinking things up thats for sure.