Competitive Mobility Project

England

Everton

2025/26: 13th in the Premier League · 2026/27: Premier League

How high can Everton realistically go?

Based on finishing 13th in the Premier League in 2025/26

About 4 in 10

Of the 85 times a club finished 13th or lower in the Premier League and stayed up between 2004/05 and 2020/21, 36 stayed up for all of the next five seasons.

36 of 85 (42%); likely range 29%–55%, 26 different clubs.

Reached the top six within ten seasonsabout 1 in 4
14 of 60; range 8%–42%
Reached the top four within ten seasonsabout 1 in 9
7 of 60; range 2%–23%

Everton itself: 10 of the last 10 seasons in the Premier League.

Taking its wage bill into account

Of clubs in a similar position with a wage bill like Everton's — the 16th highest of 36 in the top two divisions in 2024/25, 1.1 times the average — this share went on to:

Reached the top four within five seasonsabout 1 in 12
range 0%–19%
Stayed in the top flight for all of the next five seasonsabout 5 in 10
range 33%–66%
How is this worked out?

A model fitted on every club-season with a published wage bill (England from 2011/12, France from 2008/09) relates each goal to two things: where the club finished and how its wage bill compared with the season's average. Five-year goals are used because the wage records are too recent for ten-year ones. We checked the model on clubs it had not seen: adding the wage bill makes the figures more accurate for most goals, and where it does not, the page says so. The range comes from refitting the model on clubs drawn at random with replacement. Like every figure here, it describes clubs like this one, not a forecast for this club; wage bills include all staff, not only players. This model was added after the registered tests and is descriptive, not one of them.

How do we know?

We took every season since 2004/05 in which a club finished in the same part of the same league, and followed each club forward. The figure is the share that reached each goal. Ten-year goals use finishes from 2004/05 to 2015/16, five-year goals from 2004/05 to 2020/21, so every case has had the full time to play out; results run to the end of 2025/26.

It describes what happened to clubs in this position, not a forecast for one club. A club with much more money or history than is usual for its position has better chances than the figure suggests, which is why the club's own record is shown underneath.

The likely range is a 95% interval worked out by resampling clubs rather than seasons, because the same club often appears several times. It is wide where only a few clubs have been in a position, and two leagues whose ranges overlap may not really differ. Reserve teams such as Barcelona B or Real Madrid Castilla are left out of these counts, because they cannot be promoted into their first team's division.

Counts: stayed up for all of the next five seasons: 36 of 85; reached the top six within ten seasons: 14 of 60; reached the top four within ten seasons: 7 of 60.

The story so far

Everton has played 34 seasons in the divisions covered here since 1992/93: 34 in the Premier League. It has been in the Premier League since 1992/93 (34 seasons). Its best finish was 4th in the Premier League, in 2004/05.

Final position each seasonRinged dots are titles
2025/262021/222017/182013/142009/102005/062001/021997/981993/941stPremier LeagueChampionshipLeague OneLeague Two
How to read this chart

Every club in the divisions covered is placed on one ladder each season: the champions are 1st, and the top club of the second division comes straight after the bottom club of the first. Shaded bands are the divisions. Hover over or tap a dot for the season.

34seasons since 1992/93
34seasons in the Premier League
0league titles
1top-four finishes
0promotions
0relegations

Against the money

About where its money would put it

Over 13 seasons, the average gap was +0.7 places, which is within what chance alone would produce. It finished above its money in 6 of 13 seasons with published figures.

£152mwage bill, 2024/25
16thhighest of 36 clubs with published accounts
13thfinish in the Premier League, 2024/25
Where Everton finishedWhere its wage bill normally finishes
1st2024/252022/232020/212018/192016/172014/152012/13Premier LeagueChampionship
Season by season
SeasonFinishWage billWage rankPlaces above its money
2024/2513th, Premier League£152m16th of 36-0.5
2023/2412th, Premier League£154m12th of 36-0.2
2022/2317th, Premier League£156m10th of 39-4.9
2021/2216th, Premier League£162m9th of 38-9.2
2020/2110th, Premier League£183m8th of 37-2.7
2019/2012th, Premier League£164m7th of 39-3.1
2018/198th, Premier League£159m7th of 37-0.1
2017/188th, Premier League£145m6th of 35+0.4
2016/177th, Premier League£105m10th of 33+4.9
2015/1611th, Premier League£84m9th of 36+2.1
2014/1511th, Premier League£78m11th of 38+6.7
2013/145th, Premier League£69m10th of 36+7.6
2012/136th, Premier League£63m10th of 34+8.0
How do we know?

For every season, we compare each club's wage bill with the average in the top two divisions, and work out the finish that wage bill usually brings, allowing for differences between seasons and assuming a bigger wage bill never lowers the expected finish. The gap between that and the actual finish, averaged over the seasons, is the figure above. An overall verdict needs at least eight seasons, and a signed number is given only when the gap is clearly larger than chance.

Wage bills are the staff costs in each club's statutory accounts at Companies House (all staff, not only players), read without any language model and checked against the note's own components and the next year's accounts. Seasons where two readings disagree by more than 2% are left out.

On average, most of a big over-performance fades: clubs that finished at least four places above their money (on average 6.4 places) were +2.0 places the next season, so about 69% of it disappeared and the rest persisted. Some clubs beat their money season after season. It mixes good management, luck and resources the measure cannot see, so it is not a score for how well a club is run.

Clubs with a similar path

Clubs whose finishing positions over the last 15 seasons were closest to Everton's, with recent seasons counting more.

In England

West Ham UnitedEngland · 18th in the Premier League, 2025/26Crystal PalaceEngland · 15th in the Premier League, 2025/26SouthamptonEngland · 4th in the Championship, 2025/26Newcastle UnitedEngland · 12th in the Premier League, 2025/26

Elsewhere in Europe

Borussia MönchengladbachGermany · 12th in the Bundesliga, 2025/26UdineseItaly · 10th in Serie A, 2025/26ValenciaSpain · 9th in LaLiga, 2025/26

Compare Everton with another club

Sources