The Friedkin Group has spent months in and around Everton while their takeover plans underwent scrutiny.

They do not arrive on Merseyside ignorant that, for all the potential the club has to offer, short term challenges must be navigated. That is true on and off the pitch, with the Blues flirting with a relegation battle after a tough start to the season and with issues still to be resolved in relation to the Premier League’s Profit and Sustainability Regulations [PSR], rules the club has already failed to comply with on two occasions.

There is much to do, and there are different approaches that can be taken in order to address the workload. These are the priorities.

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Finding the right CEO to drive through the new owners' vision

Everton’s efforts on the pitch have been dogged by instability and uncertainty off it. Issues in the boardroom have been at the forefront of that. This club has been led by an interim board since the summer of 2023, when the departures of chief executive Denise Barrett-Baxendale, finance chief Grant Ingles and non-executive director Graeme Sharp marked a period of change at the top. Few events during former majority shareholder Farhad Moshiri’s tenure better epitomised the incoherency at the highest levels of the club than the efforts to replace them.

At the time, Everton went on the record to state a new interim board would be announced within 48 hours. It took almost two weeks. That interim board was in power for almost 18 months.

Integral to the structure was interim CEO Colin Chong. Promoted from his role in delivering the new stadium, he has appeared a figure of calm during the chaos of this period, representing the club to the Premier League and stewarding it through a host of challenges. His value to the incoming administration has been recognised immediately and he will remain in post - for now. Appointing a permanent CEO is the priority though and one of the most pressing ones. The Friedkins will be eager to appoint a safe pair of hands with extensive knowledge that can be used to drive the club forward.

Getting that appointment right is set to be one of the key jobs for a new administration and whoever they choose will take up a role alongside a new-look board.

The Friedkins have sought to introduce fresh ideas and inspiration at the top with the appointment to the board of Marc Watts as executive chairman and Ana Dunkel. Both are key Friedkin figures and Watts will oversee club affairs as he reports to new chair Dan Friedkin. Dunkel is TFG's chief financial officer.

These changes are set against the obvious departures. Moshiri, who joined the board as a non-executive director, is leaving and the final interim board member, John Spellman, follows him. An Everton supporter who had worked alongside Moshiri previously, Spellman was also handed the post of non-executive director. The chairman role now taken by Dan Friedkin has been vacant since the death of Bill Kenwright last year.

Under terms set out in the Premier League’s handbook, any new directors are expected to attend an induction meeting with the Premier League within 14 days of an ownership change - though the festive season may impact that timeline.

Will the Friedkins buy into Kevin Thelwell's Finch Farm restructure?

The contract of Everton’s director of football Kevin Thelwell is set to expire in the summer and therefore will be a subject of immediate attention. He would like to remain at Everton to be part of the transition into the club’s state-of-the-art new stadium and to kickstart the better days that should lie ahead after having helped to navigate the challenges of recent seasons.

The decision the Friedkins will take on Thelwell’s role will be their most important on the football side of the operation. With so much uncertainty on the horizon, this is one that needs action soon. Whoever sits in the role will be tasked with implementing the Friedkins’ football strategy and therefore be key to the big decisions that lie in the near future - Sean Dyche is out of contract in the summer and 13 of the 25 senior players in the squad are currently due to depart. Dyche’s position will naturally come under scrutiny, while those senior squad members whose deals are set to expire will be able to agree pre-contract terms with clubs outside of England from January 1.

This means decisions over which players the club should convince to stay need to be made quickly, while preparations must soon begin for a summer transfer window that offers the potential for a sweep through the playing squad.

Thelwell’s track record is difficult to judge because of the immense challenges he has faced - there have been failures in the transfer market, for instance the signing of Neal Maupay and the inability to bring in a forward in January 2023 when the club was floundering amid Maupay’s struggles and Dominic Calvert-Lewin’s injuries.

There have been positives though, with Thelwell having managed to reduce the wage bill and bring in much-needed transfer fees to boost a PSR situation that he largely inherited and which has constrained his ability to strengthen the squad. Under Thelwell’s watch, Everton have had no issue identifying talent and have been close to deals for emerging talents such as Mohammed Kudus and Morgan Gibbs-White. Instability has forced him instead to engineer buy now, pay later deals for players that were available on those terms, rather than top tier targets. That context is crucial to any attempt to evaluate his work.

As someone who has stuck to the task of a restructure at Finch Farm built on the 120-point plan he identified in his opening months, including an overhaul of the academy set-up that has wrought positive changes at the start of this season, and who has drafted plans for the upcoming transfer windows, the Friedkins may well place value in the institutional knowledge that would be retained with his services during a period of natural instability.

Stability and survival key to the job that will get the most attention

Dyche entered December under growing pressure after an underwhelming start to the season in which Everton struggled to accumulate points despite a favourable fixture list. Since the hammering at Old Trafford he has pulled off a crucial thrashing of Wolverhampton Wanderers and led his side to a valuable point at title-chasing Arsenal, where his team’s display embodied the resilience and discipline that has been at the heart of their best performances under him.

What happens next will inevitably be a source of intrigue and a change in the dugout is one of the quickest ways the new owners could signal they will bring a fresh approach. Such a change would not be without risk, however, and much of that could be considered unnecessary.

While Everton have struggled this season the club remains outside of the relegation zone and with the win over Wolves, Dyche maintained his image of a manager who is capable of doing what is required to keep his sides above the dotted line. That may be an uninspiring target to supporters but it is a reality of the situation the club faces and Dyche has been operating amid a structure that has been constrained by financial issues that were not of his making. His struggle to produce a more progressive playing style this season through the integration of the additional attacking talent signed in the summer has been a source of friction with parts of the fanbase but he could legitimately point to injuries as having curtailed some of his ability to move the club forward.

The current position of Everton is therefore a blessing and a curse to him - Everton are just three points from the bottom three which could be said to be indicative of a team that is underperforming under its current boss. Yet that same proximity to the relegation zone is also the greatest reason for sticking with the former Burnley manager - if top flight status is genuinely at risk then who better to fight it than the man who has led the club through two remarkable survival fights?

Dyche has spent much of this season hoping to earn the extension that would see him lead the club into its new home and there is little doubt that, if and when Everton reach the waterfront landmark as a Premier League club, he will deserve credit for having made that possible. Full acknowledgement of that might only come after others have built upon his work though.

For now, the Friedkins may prefer to stick with Dyche and make a decision on his future in the summer. They are understood to be risk averse and sensitive to the immediate challenges faced by Everton. They have also had their fingers burned at another of their clubs, Roma, where they have gone through four managers this calendar year. Keeping Dyche until the end of his contract also avoids a pay out that could undermine the club’s PSR position.

When the Friedkins arrived in Rome they waited almost a full season before implementing a change in the dugout. Even if they prize patience, there are two clear scenarios in which they may act before May though. The first would be if it began to look as though Dyche was not able to meet his bottom line of keeping Everton in the Premier League. This is why the win over Wolves was so important to him - had Everton lost it would have been the Blues that slumped into the bottom three. Instead, they opened a gap and the club received a jolt of confidence that carried through to the impressive point at the Emirates.

The second scenario that could inspire quick action would be if the failures of other clubs threatened to ruin the plans the Friedkins have for Everton. If they have a manager in mind for their project then the instability at clubs such as Tottenham Hotspur and West Ham United could lead to those sides treading on their toes and forcing them into a move if they look set to target the manager they have in mind for Everton.

The outstanding PSR issue

The Friedkins will have a deep understanding of Everton’s financial position through the work they have already done. As part of their takeover they have dealt with the almost £1bn owed by the club to a host of sources, some under expensive repayment terms that were part of a distressing financial picture whereby the club was crippled by its obligations.

A chunk of that - the money owed to MSP Sports Capital and Merseyside businessmen Andy Bell and George Downing, was dealt with earlier this year. The £450m interest-free shareholder loans from Moshiri - which could have become the subject of new PSR measures coming in on January 11, 2025 - have been converted to equity. The rest has either been paid off or restructured with new lending partners on more favourable terms. As a result, the club no longer owes money to Rights and Media Funding while the debt to 777 Partners has been restructured and concerns surrounding that side of the finances following the group's collapse have been overcome.

For all that, the Friedkins will still need to find certainty on the biggest grey area faced by the club - PSR. Everton chiefs believe the club fell into compliance with the regulations for the financial year that ended last summer, the late sales of Ben Godfrey and Lewis Dobbin the foundation of that confidence. But this is an area of huge complexity and one in which the club has twice breached the rules - leading to the punitive eight points deducted across two punishments last season.

Clubs at risk of a new breach will find out whether they face action in the opening weeks of January 2025. Even if Everton are indeed safe the club still, in theory, faces an outstanding PSR hearing related to the treatment of millions of pounds of interest the club argues was accumulated on loans used for the stadium development. This was identified as an issue that needed to be resolved when Everton were handed the second deduction of last season, with the independent panel that sat on that case ruling the matter was too complicated to be dealt with at the time.

The length of time that has since passed without it being addressed undermines the integrity of the PSR system but until the issue is concluded, Everton cannot proceed with certainty over the club’s PSR calculations - figures that are crucial to every decision it makes, including over Dyche’s position and the budget that will dictate what it can do in the summer transfer market.

The club believes there has been no wrongdoing but if there was to be a battle, and if the club were to lose, it could - in theory at least - lead to further punishment. The Friedkins have been deep in conversation with the Premier League over recent months. If they do not yet have certainty on where they stand on this issue, they need and deserve it.