Everton fans are unlikely to have been left pleased by the comments made recently by their owner, Farhad Moshiri, about his decision to sack previous managers.
What’s the latest?
The Toffees yet again find themselves in a precarious position in the league and, therefore, pressure has been heaped on their manager Frank Lampard ahead of their game on the weekend.
However, Moshiri has come out and provided the 43-year-old with his backing ahead of Saturday’s game at Goodison Park against their fellow strugglers, Southampton.
But since this, the Iranian has also put some shade on the Everton fanbase after suggesting the managerial decisions of late have been made on the back of their comments:
“Some of the decisions we’ve taken have been with the fans, all the managers who were driven out by the fans, not by me,” he told TalkSport.
And speaking to NBC Sports, journalist David Ornstein has suggested these type of comments are unlikely to go down well on Merseyside with the club currently in the mess they are:
(3:40) “You can’t keep hiring and firing managers. It’s been seven [managers] in six and a half years at Everton, and that is just not sustainable.
“He also gave his backing to the board and pointedly he said he did what the fans wanted in making changes at management level. I don’t think the fans will be too happy about that.”
Pointing the finger
On Saturday, Everton fans are expected to demonstrate their frustrations with a sit-in protest following the game as they wish to show their feelings surrounding the board.
So, it is apparent frustration is high among the Everton faithful who are clearly unimpressed by the Toffees going back-to-back years battling relegation.
In these circumstances, what any manager would surely want is for the whole club to unite as one and get behind the team to push them on in their scrap at the bottom end of the table.
And with Everton clearly unhappy with the situation with the club’s board, at the moment, you do have to wonder what Moshiri thought these comments would achieve.
At the end of the day, it is the owner who will have the final say on the running of the club and if he has felt managers in the past deserved more time then that should be on him.
But seemingly shifting some of the blame onto the fans does feel like a risky strategy when this is a fanbase who are not sh about voicing their emotions.
And to do it ahead of such a big game against one of their relegation rivals may not sit well among Everton fans.
