It’s a game Everton dare not lose, and a scenario they dare not contemplate.
Turf Moor in midweek represents the ultimate chin check for Frank Lampard’s listing Everton side: a litmus test for a team that have so far failed to respond to adversity in a series of games that have spun on a single moment of royal blue recklessness. Relegation stalks a club that have played in every Premier League season and should be nowhere near the battle at the bottom.
“It’s a season where everything that could go wrong has gone wrong,” an Everton source admitted to i. “There’s a lot of sympathy for Frank, who has impressed everyone at the club, because the run of bad fortune or silly mistakes has been pretty remarkable but we can’t simply can’t afford to lose to Burnley.”
Relegation alarms bells that have been sounding since a heavy defeat to Tottenham checked the early optimism of the Lampard era will ring loud and clear if the Clarets prevail. There are major doubts over the character of a team that hasn’t been able to bounce back when things have gone wrong.
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“There’s actually a lot of work going on behind-the-scenes to put things right but it needs to play out on the field now. The feeling is that we have enough to stay up and beat Burnley but it’s how we react in adversity now,” the source added.
Losing on the field, the club’s recently published accounts make it clear that there is plenty of work to be done off it too.
There is little doubt that the club’s short and medium-term future will be dictated by whether or not they can prevail in their survival fight. Already facing a £30million sponsorship shortfall after terminating commercial deals with sanctioned oligarch Alisher Usmanov’s holding company USM, Everton could well do without the black hole that relegation would represent.
For while restructuring is happening behind the scenes, a season in the Championship is something Everton could ill afford with a new stadium over the horizon.
i understands the club have not inserted clauses in their senior players’ contracts that would see wages cut in the event of relegation.
Indeed the only clause that would be triggered by demotion would be the break clause in Lampard’s two and a half year deal at Goodison Park. Either side could activate it in the event of relegation although no-one at Everton is in the mood to consider that possibility while they remain fighting for their life.
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They are a club that operate in tight financial margins themselves. Relegation might see profound changes at Turf Moor too.
“While you’ve got the games you can mathematically get out of it but the matches are running out. It’s a massive game and one that I believe they can win,” former Burnley hero Robbie Blake – now a manager in his own right at Bognor Regis – told i.
“While there’s pressure on it, there’s a feeling it’s a bit of a free hit for Burnley. Everton – where they are, the money they have spent – it’s serious pressure and those players have to stand up and be counted.
“If Burnley get the first goal, how will they react to that?”
How the Clarets could do with a goal like the one Blake scored against Manchester United 12 years ago in a game of similar magnitude.
“It’s a club set up to fight against the odds under Sean (Dyche). I think staying up this year would be his greatest achievement,” Blake said. The survival fight reaches a crossroads in East Lancashire.
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