By Daniel Lewis
Sky Sports pundits Dougie Critchley and Zac Djellab have both tipped Everton to be relegated from the Premier League this season.
Everton narrowly avoided relegation last season and are 18th with four games of the 2023-24 campaign played, having taken just one point to date.
Speaking on The Football Show [7 September], Critchley added that dropping into the Championship “would be an absolute catastrophe” for the Toffees.
📉 Sheffield United
📉 Luton Town
📉 Everton@DougieCritchley and @ZacDjellab predict the bottom three in the Premier League this season pic.twitter.com/on9xKWcfzl
“I’m going to go with Sheffield United to go down, and Everton and Luton,” he said when asked to pick his three relegation favourites.
“I think Everton, the way they’ve been run over the past few years, with their net spend over the past 10 years being more than Real Madrid and Bayern Munich, they’ve been asking for it for a long time.
“It would be an absolute catastrophe for that club and their finances.”
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Fellow pundit Djellab added: “I think Sheffield United and Luton. I originally had Wolves also, but I’ve been pleasantly surprised by things. I’ll go Everton now.”
No surprise
This is hardly a controversial take, both in terms of tipping Everton for relegation and adding that they will struggle financially if they do go down.
The Toffees have been flirting with the Championship for a while now and will go down this season if things do not improve drastically.
A point away at Sheffield United last weekend was heralded as a possible turning point, but that sums up just how far expectations have fallen.
Everton quite simply have to hope that there are three teams worse than them this season, as there was last time out.
Realistically, it will be any three of Burnley, Luton, Sheffield United, Everton, Wolves and Bournemouth for the drop on the basis of what we have seen so far.
With home games against two of those sides to come over the next month, we are already entering a truly crucial period in the season.
In other Everton news, a Toffees player “will be missed” by his national side after being ruled out of a crucial game.