Everton have become renowned for reckless spending since owner Farhad Moshiri took over the club six years ago, spending north of £500m on over 40 signings and appointing six managers during that time, with Frank Lampard the latest to take on the challenge at the club.
The ongoing issues at Goodison came to breaking point for the fans after they protested against the owners and board several times last month, as the Toffees fell into one of their lowest league positions in over a decade, with Moshiri’s transfer approach of throwing everything at the wall and hoping it sticks falling as flat as it ever could.
The side sits in 16th just four points off the relegation zone, with the Toffees earning just six points in their last 14 league games, and their only worse points tally in a run of 14 league games within a single season was in 1950/51, according to EFC Statto.
The Toffees owner must learn from his mistakes going into the new era working with Lampard at the club, and there are many players in the squad that reflect the poor transfer decisions made in the past, with Jean-Philippe Gbamin one of the most obvious poor choices under Moshiri’s ownership.
Since the start of the 2019/20 season Everton have had more permanent managers (4) than Gbamin has had starts in the Premier League (3), which alone proves that the £25m signing was not a good decision.
With all that considered, the Ivorian midfielder’s inability to become a consistent member of the team over his time at the club does come down to his injury record more than anything else, missing 86 competitive games through various issues over the last three years.
That said, this lack of availability was nothing new and Moshiri should’ve seen it coming. Gbamin sustained six different injury problems at his previous club Mainz, where he was side-lined across 112 days for the Bundesliga side in the space of just 12 months.
The £75k-per-week dud, who was criticised for “struggling” in the Everton side by Jamie Carragher, has since seen his market value drop drastically from £25m to just £9m, now worth £16m less than the transfer fee paid by Everton in 2019, making only eight appearances in over two years, according Transfermarkt.
Hopefully with Lampard’s presence, and the fans’ reaction to the situation at the club over the last few months, Moshiri can learn from these mistakes going forward. As a result, hopefully, the new Everton manager can have a positive impact and influence on the acquisition of future signings to take the club out of this constant cycle of spending money on players like Gbamin, who are simply incapable of delivering when they’re needed.
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