What Everton supporters want from Friedkin takeover is clear after quiet remark at Arsenal

The last time Everton picked up three points at Arsenal in front of fans, the FA Cup was still in the Goodison Park trophy cabinet so loyal but long-suffering Blues could be forgiven for celebrating a goalless draw away to a Gunners side, who had scored in 14 consecutive home matches, like it was a win.

Everton have beaten Arsenal once at the Emirates Stadium, but it was behind closed doors action due to the global coronavirus pandemic when they snatched a 1-0 victory on St George’s Day 2021 as home goalkeeper Bernd Leno fumbled the ball into his own net from a Richarlison cross.

Those same sterile and artificial conditions enabled Carlo Ancelotti’s side to record a first win over Liverpool at Anfield since Kevin Campbell’s strike in 1999 but also suffer 10 home defeats throughout a season in which they still finished in the top half of the Premier League table. The most recent occasion that there was actually spectators present to see Everton triumph at Arsenal, the Emirates Stadium was still a decade away from being built.

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“That says it all,” lamented Graham Stuart when chatting to the ECHO’s reporters before kick-off. Stuart, who like Campbell, was born in south London in 1970, scored the Blues’ first goal in a 2-1 victory that day, cancelling out Ian Wright’s 38th minute opener some five minutes into the second half before Andrei Kanchelskis struck the winner six minutes before full-time.

The world was a very different place back then. John Major was Prime Minister, George Michael’s Jesus to a Child had just knocked Michael Jackson’s Earth Song off number one in the charts with Spaceman by one hit wonders Babylon Zoo, propelled into the national consciousness by a Levi’s jeans advert to take top spot the following week, while a mere 4% of the UK population had access to the internet.

Like all of Everton’s FA Cup winners of the previous season – a trophy lifted at the old Wembley, another stadium that no longer exists – Stuart just wants to pass the baton on to a new generation of Blues heroes. Everton have been competing almost continuously at the top end of the sport since the very beginning, but they’ve been also-rans for far too long now.

They’re the only club to be both founder members of the Football League in 1888 – before any of the so-called ‘Big Six’ were taking part – and the Premier League in 1992, who are also ever-presents in the latter. However, among the half dozen clubs who make up that unbroken presence in the rebranded English top flight (with Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool, Manchester United and Tottenham Hotspur being the others), they’re the only one to have gone into the final day of a season with their status in the division on the line, not once, but on three separate occasions, including Sean Dyche’s first campaign in charge.

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Arsenal only had one more League Championship than Everton going into the Premier League era but whereas they’ve added another three titles since then – the last of which in 2003/04 saw them become the top flight’s first ‘Invincibles’ since Preston North End in the inaugural 1888/89 season – and 19 consecutive Champions League qualifications between 1998-2017, the Blues have mostly found themselves making up the numbers. Curiously, the Gunners haven’t been the best in the land again since they departed Highbury but for Everton, the move from Goodison Park – which was last season named as being in the bottom three grounds in the Premier League for generating matchday revenue – to their own new stadium on the Mersey waterfront, is an economic necessity.

Before then, and possibly even before Everton’s next fixture, a new era for the club is set to begin with the completion of the takeover by the Friedkin Group. Farhad Moshiri, who has been trying to offload his 94.1% stake for two-and-a-half years, dispensed of his Arsenal shares so he could control his own team with the Blues, but despite “putting his money where his mouth is” (before PSR breaches prompted an abrupt halt in spending), nobody else in the game has spent so much to become so bad and change has needed to come for a long time now.

Even under David Moyes, Everton’s most successful Premier League manager, whose 11-year reign included nine top half finishes, the team infamously failed to win at Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool or Manchester United. Beleaguered Blues want to be able to think big again and are hoping that the fresh dawn that now awaits will enable them to start getting more than a point at such illustrious venues in the future.