Steady Pairs Of Hands
The Friedkin Group's two major clubs are in the care of managers who knew exactly what was required.
It has hardly been plain sailing for The Friedkin Group this season.
Back in July, they withdrew from initial discussions with then-Everton owner Farhad Moshiri over buying out his shares.
While talks to purchase Everton would ultimately resume, and conclude successfully before Christmas, in the meantime, TFG had an unsavoury situation to deal with at their other major European club.
Expectations have always been high at Roma under TFG’s ownership, but the start of this campaign was a hot mess.
September brought with it the dismissal of club legend Daniele De Rossi.
De Rossi had taken interim charge of Roma in January 2024, and led the club to the Europa League semi-finals and a sixth-place finish in Serie A. His reward was a three-year contract, yet a few short months later, he was gone and Roma fans were in protest.
Roma CEO Lina Souloukou left as a result of the upheaval, and new coach Ivan Juric did not last — he was a poor fit and was never going to appease Roma’s fanbase.
TFG, then, needed to get their next pick right. Claudio Ranieri was convinced to come out of retirement for his third stint in charge of his boyhood club. Thankfully for TFG, this has proved to be the right decision.
Ranieri, who is still set to move upstairs at Roma after this season, has taken 30 points in 15 Serie A games since his appointment. In that same time, only the top two, Inter (33) and Napoli (31), have taken more points (via Opta).
The Ranieri approach has paid off, and so perhaps it is no surprise that, based on that experience, when the time came for a managerial change at Everton, in January, TFG pumped straight for a known quantity.
David Moyes’ impact at Everton has been equally as impressive — if not more so — than the one Ranieri has had at Roma.
Like Ranieri with Roma, Moyes just gets Everton. He knows how to tap into the fanbase, something that Sean Dyche simply was unable to do. Frank Lampard tried, but ultimately lacked the skill or experience as a manager to build on that with positive results.
Rafael Benitez, of course, claimed to “know the city”, but that appointment was a disaster waiting to happen.
Moyes has not just provided a safe pair of hands. He has already set about changing the culture at Everton.
Under Dyche, it was too often a woe-is-us story. Something that outgoing Director of Football Kevin Thelwell has at times been guilty of too.
Now there are plenty of caveats and both Dyche and Thelwell have dealt with more chaos than any Premier League manager or Director of Football should do — but there’s a solid argument to say it was only that chaos that had them in the roles to begin with.
After collecting 15 points from a possible 24, Everton are looking up, not down.
The irony is that due to recent results of other teams around them, they are back in 16th, yet instead of being one point above the bottom three, they are 15 points clear — such is the congested nature of the mid-table of the Premier League this term, that is the same gap in points between Everton in 16th, and Manchester City in fourth.
There will be bumps in the road for Moyes, and there is still plenty of work that needs doing at Everton by TFG.
The same can be said of Ranieri and Roma.
But what these two wise men have done is brought about much-needed stability, and they have dashed the idea that stability and results cannot be achieved quickly, on limited resources.
Too often at Everton, and perhaps at Roma too, there has been a long list of excuses offered up for underperformance.
Moyes and Ranieri may have just ensured both clubs can move on from that, both in the short and long term.