When Farhad Moshiri spent almost £200million of his fortune to become Everton’s majority shareholder, he spoke about helping to ‘deliver success in the future’.
Exactly three years to the day since his arrival was announced, Moshiri’s Everton are sat ninth in the table. On February 27, 2016, they were 11th.
To say things have not gone to plan under the Iranian billionaire would be an understatement of epic proportion.
Moshiri arrived on Merseyside with an ambitious, yet achievable, plan of taking the club from mid-table mediocrity to fighting for a place in the Champions League.
A year later he vowed that he would not allow Everton to ‘be a museum’, admitting that while the club’s storied past was worth celebrating, it could not make up for a lack of modern day glory.
Moshiri has certainly put his money where his mouth is, investing around £300m on new players, paying off the club’s debt and making progress on a new stadium.
But while Everton have never been closer to a much-needed move away from Goodison Park, things on the pitch haven’t followed suit.
Five managers have already sat in the dugout during Moshiri’s reign, a stark contrast to David Moyes’ 11 years at the helm when chairman, Bill Kenwright, had full control.
Moshiri’s hire-and-fire policy – and the huge sums of money he has invested in the squad – has given Everton the feel of a club like Chelsea, just without the trophies.
The disconnection between the fans and those who should be their heroes has grown as the Moshiri era has gone on, with widespread apathy in the stands.
Here, Sportsmail explains where it’s all gone wrong over the last three years – and why Moshiri has a far bigger job on his hands than he could have ever expected.
When Moshiri bought 49.9 per cent of the club three years ago, he did so with one eye fixed firmly on the future.
It had been agreed that the 63-year-old would increase his stake – something he did in September last year when he purchased a further 18.7 per cent of shares – to gain further control at Goodison.
The club say that Moshiri will again increase his holding to 77.2 per cent no later than July of this year. That may be a good time to reflect on his time at the club so far.
If Moshiri’s blueprint for success had come to fruition, the club would be using this summer to prepare for their first ever Champions League campaign.
Instead, the next transfer window will see director of football, Marcel Brands, again trying to fix the errors of others by shipping out a host of overpaid, underperforming players, all while attempting to strengthen the manager’s first-team squad.
Moshiri, who sold his shares in Arsenal to buy into Everton, arrived in Liverpool with a three-year plan designed to take the club to the next level.