Their fans seem to regard the Profit and Sustainability Rules as holding them back when, in fact, they may have saved them from an even greater financial predicament due to imcompetence at board level.
To be able to compete with the Sportswashing Oil cheats, you have to get absolutely everything right - first team recruitment, academy, commercial income, match day revenue, managerial appointments (footballing and non-footballing). What FSG have done - and done well - is to improve all of those things in "baby steps" rather than focussing on one. It's meant that where mistakes have been made, they've not been catastrophic and by improving all aspects of the club we've been able to absorb unforseen events such as the pandemic. Everton have instead gambled on huge leaps - firstly throwing huge sums at first team recruitment a la Leeds and now embarking on a massive build that they clearly cannot afford and for which the returns may be seriously optimistic. Arguably if Moshiri had just focussed initially on player recruitment that was absolutely necessary (replacement for Lukaku and backup for aging full backs), appointed a top class CEO with lots of business contacts, extended the Park End into a "Dortmund Wall" style home end and replaced the old-boys club at Finch Farm with some decent youth coaches, they'd be better off and it may not have cost him any more.
It could definitely be argued that the P&S rules have gone a long way in saving them from themselves. Moshiri and his merry men seem hell-bent on a financial suicide mission. The fans should thank their lucky stars that they've ''been held back'' because even as it stands they are in all kinds of trouble.
As always, their overriding problem has been their pathological obsession with us. Their fans' reaction to our new Main Stand going up forced the clubs hand. They simply had to come up with something to appease the increasingly restless natives. Enter the utterly ludicrous BMD project that they know full well they cannot afford. They've since become so engrossed in that vanity project that they will do everything they can to get it built, even if it bankrupts them completely.
It's the same on the pitch too. They look across the park every waking moment and see us with Klopp. A trophy room choc-full of every club trophy it is possible to win and our fans now enjoying major finals most seasons. In the face of all that, they can't and won't wait and cannot accept patience. They need it all, and they need it yesterday.
It's been said a million times before and it will be said a million times in future; it's their ridiculous obsession with all things LFC that is absolutely killing them. Everything they do is reactionary, and in reaction to what we do. Problem is, we may be from the same city and play in the same league, but we are on different planets as football clubs. If they keep this farcical obsession going they will always be compelled to overreach themselves, making bad decision after bad decision in the process.