Former Everton winger Pat Nevin believes that the Toffees can ill-afford to suffer relegation from the Premier League in 'one of their most important seasons ever'.
Much to their dismay, Everton supporters have become used to their team battling at the wrong end of the table in recent years amidst ownership and financial turbulences.
The Toffees avoided the drop in back-to-back seasons under the tutelage of former manager Sean Dyche and overcame two separate points deductions last term - after breaking the Premier League's Profit and Sustainability Rules (PSR) - before finishing 14 points above the relegation zone.
This season, Everton are hovering just one point above the bottom three in 16th place, and the club's new owners - the Friedkin Group - have decided to replace Dyche with a familiar face on the blue side of Merseyside in David Moyes, following a run of just one win in 11 matches.
Everton are one of six English clubs who have never been relegated from the Premier League since its inception in 1992, while they were last competing outside of the top flight back in 1953-54.
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Prospect of relegation is "really frightening" for Everton
With demotion to the second tier a distinct possibility for the Toffees this season, Nevin has stressed the importance of his former side preserving their top-flight status if their financial situation is not to improve any time soon.
Speaking to Sports Mole, Nevin said: "It's as important as last season and the season before (to survive), but these two or three seasons have been as important as any, almost ever, because of the debt, because of the ownership problems, because of the new stadium, because of everything.
"Because if you find yourself going down and you can't get back up - and we all know how difficult the finances and PSR is - if you can't get back up and you're a club the size of Everton with that new stadium, that's frightening. That's really frightening for everybody with the finances that are involved with that.
"So yes, I agree completely, you need to be able to save it this season. If you can save it this season, and the new ownership's ideas are good ones - we don't know if they are or not, they might be, they might not be, but we'll find out - but if they are good enough and they'll be able to make the finances work, and the new manager's given a lot of time, they could come back up [to be a force in English football again].
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Everton's financial situation a priority for new owners
"The difficulty is, in times gone past, I would have said: 'David Moyes, spot on, right man, new owners, bags of money, party time'. Right? That's what I'd have thought, but it's not the way football works now.
"It's just a change now, and the change is you've got PSR, you've got rules about finances, you could want to invest £500m, and you can't. It's because of the rules, so the problem you have is not, is David Moyes a good enough manager? He is. Are Everton a big enough club? They are. Is it a good enough stadium? It is.
"All of them are fine. It's just finance. Nothing more than that, and if they can sort that out, they'll be OK."
Nevin, who made 124 appearances for Everton in his playing days between 1988 and 1992, has also shared his thoughts on Moyes's return to Goodison Park, with the Scotsman to take charge of his first game at home to Aston Villa on Wednesday night.
Moyes has returned to Everton almost 12 years on from his first stint at the club where he won 42% of his 518 games in charge, while he also guided the Toffees to the qualifying rounds of the Champions League in 2005 and the FA Cup final in 2009.
Pat Nevin was talking to Sports Mole on behalf of talkSPORT BET.
Oliver Thomas
