What is going on with the Everton Board?

Everton are in a spot of turmoil early on into the 2017-18 season. A year that was expected to herald a rise into the top six echelon of the Premier League is off to a disappointing start with Ronald Koeman’s vision coming under fire. The Blues have spent close to £140 million in the offseason rebuilding the spine of the squad, but the pressures in a win-now league are not going to give Steve Walsh and Koeman too much time to field a settled product.

Earlier this morning, disgraced footballer-turned-pundit Joey Barton went on radio to say that he believed that Club Chairman Bill Kenwright was behind the blocking of a striker being signed.

Now this is indeed interesting information, because every press conference with Koeman leading up to deadline day had the Dutchman saying he wanted at least two players, a striker and a left-sided defender, neither of which came through.

In his comments leading up to the Tottenham Hotspur game, Koeman seemed to accept that the moves Everton made for a striker failed to materialize and that he was willing to continue with what he had, and bring back Oumar Niasse into the fold.

In another development, it appears Everton are making some changes in their leadership structure as well. This is from the official listing site of all companies, Companies House -

As of this morning, Moshiri is a ‘person with significant control’ (PSC), which he has been technically as the majority shareholder at 49%. Here’s what this could mean though, courtesy of The Esk who has a good understanding of the financial jargon that accompanies the running of the team -

We can expect more to come in the proceeding days with this, as it appears that the notification and confirmation statements have been filed and will be available to view in 5 days.

As we found out during the dealings for young forward Henry Onyekuru, Moshiri has wanted to get quite involved in the club’s transfer dealings, so this could also herald an official shift in Club policy whereby the Iranian investor will now be a part of all negotiations, likely after watching Everton have the whole summer to replace Romelu Lukaku and somehow bungle that.

The timing of the two incidents is quite curious, and if you throw into the mix that Moshiri’s business partner Alisher Usmanov continues to grow restless with his inability to do anything with his 30% stake in Arsenal, the next few months could be certainly interesting for the Everton ownership situation.