Everton never finished lower than 12th between 2005 and 2021

I am not an Everton fan, but I do get a little confused with all these posts slating them and saying "well, how on Earth have they managed to stay in the league for so long when they're always this bad!?"

It's a spot of revisionist history if ever there was one. Everton have never been a top, top team (EDIT: In the Premier League era), but for the entire span of the 2004-05 to 2020-21 seasons, the Toffees never finished lower than 12th place in the Premier League.

In fact, across those 17 seasons they finished in the top eight (now pretty much all European places) as many as 12 times.

That's a level of consistency which very, very few other clubs have achieved in their Premier League history. Arguably only the "Big Six", and even Spurs and City have only achieved it in the last 15 years themselves.

So yes, Everton are in a bit of a dip right now. But that's happening off the back of what was close to a 20-year period of solid European-pedigree consistency.