Everton's Great Escapes Not Fantasy Football; Burnley Can't Buy That
Christopher Beesley has his say on Burnley's victory in their legal dispute with Everton in this week's Royal Blue column.
Back in 2023/24 when Everton were first hit with their unprecedented brace of points deductions in the same season, this correspondent remarked that a Kopite pal of mine told me that the Blues will always be ok when it comes to Premier League survival because they're the "Real Madrid of relegation escapes."
Talk about being damned by faint praise. I think this was some kind of red-tinted spectacled, ham-fisted attempt at a backhanded compliment because the 15-times champions of Europe Los Blancos seem to be the one team to have the Indian Sign over Liverpool when it comes to playing in major finals, and the solitary outfit above them in world football's food chain who do a lot of things they do, but better.
Everton have subsequently been joined by Tottenham Hotspur as a Premier League ever-present to go into the final day with their top flight status on the line. However, as someone who was inside the stadium that afternoon, I can assure you that given how tamely David Moyes' men performed that day, Spurs fans were never sweating in the manner that loyal but long-suffering Blues were during their hat-trick of 'Great Escapes' against Wimbledon in 1994, Coventry City in 1998 or Bournemouth in 2023 – even when West Ham United went ahead against Leeds United.
As much as Evertonians were put through the wringer on each of those occasions – like many of you, I'm a survivor who was present for all three – they ultimately always came through though and stayed up. Hence the observation from our neighbour from what used to be 'across Stanley Park.'
The same goes for the 2021/22 season, the campaign in question for which Burnley have won their legal dispute that has ordered Everton to pay them £35million. Despite trailing 2-0 at half-time in their last home game of the campaign against Crystal Palace, Frank Lampard's side fought back to triumph 3-2 and secure safety with one fixture to spare.
Yet we're told a major element in the Clarets' successful case was a calculation they used to supposedly show how Everton's £19.5million overspend had resulted in their relegation. Their expert witnesses Professor Rob Wilson and Will Daniels undertook a statistical and probabilistic modelling exercise. The pair employed historical "ratings", developed and used by the gambling industry, for Premier League clubs for 2021/22 in order to perform 100,000 simulations of Everton's results over that season to assess the probability of Everton or Burnley being relegated. They concluded that, under each scenario, Everton were more likely than Burnley to be relegated.
Just what sort of credence does such 'fantasy football' have in the real world? The bookies get enough right to make a tidy profit from most punters, but they didn't see Leicester City's 5,000/1 Premier League title coming a decade ago did they? Also, here at the ECHO, we were sent predictions from a so-called 'Supercomputer' for the 2025/26 Premier League season last August. I must admit, I don't know what differentiates a 'super' computer from your ordinary laptop, perhaps it has a cape? In a press release from Freebets.com, we were confidently told: "This isn't fan fiction. It's a projection grounded in player stats, squad strength, managerial history, and fixture modelling — offering fans and analysts a sharper lens to view the season ahead." Bullish stuff indeed. Do you want to know which three teams this grandiosely titled electronic 'Mystic Meg' told us were going down this term? Sunderland, Nottingham Forest and Bournemouth! Not only is that a nought from three success rate, but the Black Cats and the Cherries not only survived the drop but both qualified for the Europa League. I hope that same 'Supercomputer' isn't anywhere near NASA the next time they're planning a mission to the moon.
Despite the rapid rise of artificial intelligence throughout society, the robots aren't in a position to take over the world just yet. Infamously in our industry, an AI tool used by the ECHO started picking up local slang and tried to offer up news articles referring to the police as "the bizzies." I remember playing a version of the popular computer game Football Manager and both Jurgen Klopp and Pep Guardiola quit their jobs with the German moving to Manchester City and the Spaniard joining Liverpool. Perhaps that seemed possible because in this artificial universe, they were two similarly sized clubs but even churning a multitude of statistics through a machine and supposedly running your scenarios one hundred thousand times or even a million times, you cannot replicate the emotion of football in the real world and those moves would never happen.
Why did Barry Horne, without an Everton goal since his debut almost two years earlier, score 'a worldie' in the fightback against Wimbledon in 1994? Why did Gareth Farrelly find the net in spectacular fashion with his weaker right foot against Coventry City in 1998? We'll never truly know. How do you quantify the impact of the Blues magnificent supporters and the part they played on those two days and again in 2023. Sean Dyche has managed both Burnley and Everton and he remarked of the 1-0 win over Bournemouth: "I've never heard a louder stadium than that ever in my career and I've been in football all my life. The noise of that moment [Abdoulaye Doucoure's goal] was incredible, and the final whistle, they're two things I'll never take away from my career and that's those two moments at Everton. It was unbelievable. The power, the sheer volume, it was almost shaking you, you know what I mean? I can feel it now." You don't get much of that at a Turf Moor that holds less than 22,000, yet every time I go there with the Blues, there seems to be away fans in the home end as they can't fit in their own sold-out allocation. How do we calculate things like that?
So, let's focus on some "facts" as Rafael Benitez, the man who was in charge of Everton for the first part of the 2021/22 season before splashing out around £28million on full-back pair Vitalii Mykolenko and Nathan Patterson in his final fortnight before being sacked, likes to deal with, especially when it comes to Alex Ferguson at Manchester United. The Blues have not been relegated in any shape or form for three quarters of a century now since they last dropped out of the top flight in 1951. During that same period, Burnley have gone down 10 times, including twice since the season in question alone over the last couple of years. They even had a spell in the fourth tier of English football and in 1987 when Everton were winning their ninth League Championship, the Clarets were almost dropping out of the Football League completely. Do these artificial models now feel like they're based on any kind of firm footing?
Also, all of this with the panel saying they were satisfied that expert witness David Baldwin's "close involvement with Burnley" (he ran their club as CEO) "did not colour his evidence." But this is of course the same panel of David Phillips, Alan Greenwood and Nick Igoe who were football's version of the hanging judge when they slapped the Blues with their initial 10-point deduction in November 2023, which at the time was the largest sporting sanction in the 135-year history of English top flight football. That decision was subsequently pulled apart by the appeal board that gave Everton four points back, stating that they "made legal errors" on two grounds. At least they cannot return again for the Blues' latest appeal. Given the circus we've already witnessed, perhaps they'll be replaced by Mark Clattenburg, Graham Poll and Clive Thomas?
Book your tee time at Hill Dickinson Stadium
Golfers can get set to play inside Everton's Hill Dickinson Stadium this summer, with tee times for a European first experience now on general sale. Upper Deck Golf will take over the Blues' home from Thursday 16 July to Sunday 19 July, transforming the waterfront stadium into an interactive golf experience that will see tee boxes placed high in the stands and custom greens laid out on the pitch below. Timed to coincide with this year's Open Championship taking place at Royal Birkdale, the experience will give participants the chance to hit a series of approach shots from different vantage points around the ground, while enjoying a lively, festival-style atmosphere with music, food, drinks and a range of golf challenges. Having previously staged events at some of the world's most recognised NFL and MLB stadiums, including Wrigley Field in Chicago, Yankee Stadium in New York and Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles, the four-day takeover will see Upper Deck Golf bring its unique format across the Atlantic for the very first time.
Everton Season Ticket, Premium and Forever Blue+ Members, along with those who registered for early ticket access, have now had their tee times allocated for this unique experience. All remaining tee times can be booked online here from today (Thursday 11 June). Tee times will run from 7am to 9pm on Thursday 16, Friday 17, Saturday 18 and Sunday 19 July, with bookings available in two-player slots. Premium and VIP packages are also available, which include access to additional challenges and complimentary food and drink. Clubs will be provided at each hitting location. Participants will also be able to watch live golf coverage of the 154th The Open Championship, taking place at Royal Birkdale just a few miles from the stadium, on screens across the venue.
Aaron Duckmanton, chief revenue officer at Everton said: "We are delighted to be bringing Upper Deck Golf to Hill Dickinson Stadium. It's an experience that has been delivered at some of the world's most iconic venues, and this is a great opportunity for people to see our new home from a completely different perspective. With The Open Championship taking place nearby, events like this bring something unique to the city – whether that's hitting shots from the upper tiers down onto the pitch or enjoying the clubhouse-style atmosphere, activities and challenges around the venue. It's a fresh and memorable way to engage with the stadium during one of golf's most historic tournaments. We've always said we want the stadium to be more than just a matchday venue, and events like this show how we can use the space in new and innovative ways, attract different audiences and keep it active all year round."
To book a tee time to experience Upper Deck Golf at Hill Dickinson Stadium, click here. FOLLOW OUR EVERTON FC FACEBOOK PAGE! Latest EFC news and analysis from via the Liverpool Echo's dedicated FB page.
