SOCCER:MIKEL ARTETA got married just over a year ago and, like many newly-weds, gave serious thought over where to set up home. That was how he described the decision to reject interest from Arsenal and Manchester City and to sign a five-year, €85,000-a-week contract at Everton anyhow.
“This club has the ability to make you feel at home,” said the Spanish midfielder in December.
“When you are at home and you are building a beautiful house and you are close to completing it, you want to enjoy that house. You don’t want to move away, and that is how I felt about Everton.” Arteta was outlining his vision for Champions League football at Goodison Park, a feat he and many others believed possible despite the financial disadvantages facing David Moyes.
That ambition collapsed long before the season was out. The evidence of a draining summer, crystallised on transfer deadline day, is that the house is following suit.
Everton could have banked far more than Arsenal’s €11 million for Arteta 12 months ago. Instead, they invested in the belief that Moyes had constructed the club’s finest squad since Howard Kendall’s title-winning era and gave the 28-year-old a contract they could not afford without Champions League qualification. Or new investment. Or a new stadium. Now the banks have called in Everton’s debt, capping its overdraft at €28 million, and a club that denies being in financial peril is slipping dangerously behind its peers.
A growing band of disgruntled supporters’ groups have accused Everton of stagnating under the ownership of Bill Kenwright. Deadline day left the team in a worse state than that.
Moyes, who gave Arteta six days off when it transpired his wedding date clashed with a pre-season tour of Australia, has good cause to be aggrieved with the midfielder.
The move to Arsenal was off until, two hours before the deadline, Arteta told Everton he was so desperate to go he was prepared to take a €11,000-a-week pay cut at the Emirates Stadium, weakening the club’s negotiating stance at a stroke. But Everton cannot feign shock and disgust at Arteta’s volte-face. They have not given Moyes a net spend on players for three years.
They have failed to deliver two stadium projects and Kenwright’s search for new investment has unearthed more con men than cash. The fact Royston Drenthe was flying in from Real Madrid to complete a season-long loan on €45,000 a week indicates Everton knew that too.
Everton have dismissed talk of a financial crisis. In 2011, however, they have generated around €34 million and Barclays has seen far more of that than Moyes.
Transfers have yielded €3.5 million for Steven Pienaar, €2.8 million for James Vaughan, €2.5 million from Blackburn for Yakubu Ayegbeni, an initial €3 million for Jermaine Beckford and the €11 million for Arteta. The €10 million raised by selling the former Bellefield training ground also went to the bank.
Yakubu is no great loss to Moyes. The Nigeria striker was never the same player after an Achilles injury and it will be a relief to remove his €45,000-a-week wages from the books.
Cashing in on Beckford, who often looked out of his depth in the Premier League yet still scored 10 goals in his only season at that level, and provided much-needed pace, does keep the focus on Everton’s finances.
Taken together, their joint departures place huge responsibility on Denis Stracqualursi, the Argentina striker signed on a season’s loan after failing to impress Sven-Goran Eriksson on trial at Leicester, the injury-prone Louis Saha and the mediocre Victor Anichebe.
The argument against implosion at Goodison is, as always, Moyes. The two arrivals are typical of the acquisitions he excels in - Arteta being a classic example - and Wayne Rooney’s deadline-day departure in 2004 did not prevent Everton finishing fourth that season. Seven years ago, however, his funds were not draining away to the bank.
