- Ancelotti exit & Benitez appointment triggered nightmare relegation battle.
- Reckless spending led to a PSR breach, causing a future six-point deduction.
- Series of bizarre headlines plagued the club, including player arrests.
Everton Football Club have endured plenty of miserable campaigns since the inception of the Premier League. However, the 2021/22 season easily takes the crown as the absolute worst.
What began with faint dreams of European football ended in a desperate battle against Premier League relegation and an off-the-pitch financial disaster that crippled the club for years. To add fuel to the bin fire, the club also hired a Liverpool legend, lost their playmaker to a police investigation, and somehow became associated with a serial killer.
Ancelotti exit and the Benítez chaos
The problems at Goodison Park began before a ball had even been kicked. After guiding Everton to a respectable tenth-place finish, Carlo Ancelotti suddenly deserted the club to return to Real Madrid in June 2021.
In one of the most controversial decisions of his chaotic ownership, majority shareholder Farhad Moshiri then appointed former Liverpool manager Rafa Benítez as Ancelotti’s replacement.
Aside from the horror of appointing an ex-Red, most Everton supporters also refused to forgive Benítez for his infamous past comments branding Everton a “small club.” Instead of creating unity, Moshiri managed to alienate the fanbase before the opening day.
Financial hardship and the PSR trap
Financial problems quickly compounded the crisis on the pitch. Years of reckless spending under Moshiri finally caught up with the club, as the Premier League’s Profit and Sustainability Rules (PSR) severely constrained Everton’s transfer budget.
This financial stranglehold forced the club into one of the most frugal summer transfer windows in its recent history. Everton had to rely on Demarai Gray for a meagre £1.7 million, alongside uninspiring free transfers like Andros Townsend and Salomón Rondón.
Off-the-pitch drama and the winter collapse
Off the pitch, matters rapidly descended into further chaos:
- Midfield void: Police arrested midfielder Gylfi Sigurðsson, prompting the club to suspend him indefinitely and strip the team of a key creative outlet.
- James Rodríguez saga: Benítez froze out Colombian superstar James Rodríguez before letting him leave for Al-Rayyan. His unceremonious exit seemed to symbolise the gradual unravelling of Moshiri’s once-ambitious project.
“African Vampire”
Just when Evertonians thought the summer could not yield any more grim headlines, the macabre entered the frame. In August, the international press widely reported the capture of Masten Wanjala, a self-confessed serial killer whom Kenyan police dubbed the “African Vampire.”
When global news outlets published the monster’s mugshot, it seemed particularly on-brand for Everton’s unfolding disaster of a season that he was wearing a prominent Everton home shirt.
Complete capitulation on the pitch
On the pitch, after a deceptively decent start to the campaign, Everton plummeted into a disastrous run, winning just one league game in thirteen matches between September and January. A long-term injury to star striker Dominic Calvert-Lewin worsened the slump, exposing a complete lack of attacking depth.
The board finally sacked Benítez after just 154 days in charge following a humiliating defeat to Norwich City, leaving Everton sitting precariously in 15th place.
But before his dismissal, the club just had time to let Benítez make one last damaging move: he sold Lucas Digne to Aston Villa for £25m, further robbing the squad of vital creativity.
Frank Lampard and the Goodison Park relegation battle
Frank Lampard arrived in January 2022 with Everton facing a grim battle against the drop. Defeats continued to mount, and Goodison Park became a cauldron of high anxiety. Everton suffered nine home league defeats during the campaign.
Were it not for the incredible support of the fans in the closing weeks of the season—and the second-half heroics against Crystal Palace – Everton would have suffered a historic relegation. But against all odds, the club just about survived.
However, the toxic legacy of the 2021/22 season was far from over…
Costly PSR legacy and the Burnley lawsuit
While the memory of the 2021/22 season ends with pitch invasions and celebrations after the victory against Palace, its true legacy emerged years later.
The catastrophic financial mismanagement of that season resulted in a major PSR breach. This breach triggered a damaging six-point deduction during the 2023/24 campaign. This artificial drop down the table inflicted a loss of Premier League merit payments, starving the club of millions in vital revenue.
Worse still, an independent commission recently ordered Everton to pay relegated rivals Burnley £35 million in compensation (£26m in damages and £9m in interest). The commission ruled that Everton gained an unfair sporting advantage during that infamous 2021/22 season—the very year Burnley went down.
Conclusion: An unwanted gift that keeps on giving
It’s fair to say that the 2021/22 Everton season was an absolute omnishambles. With the exception of the heroics against Palace, if something could go wrong at Goodison Park, it did. The fact that the season did not end in relegation remains a minor miracle and the only thing sparing that campaign from being Everton’s worst in the club’s history.
While fans hope this toxic era is finally a thing of the past, you never know. For Everton, the 2021/22 season seems to be the unwanted gift that keeps on giving.
