Everton prepare for crucial week on and off the pitch after spark of defiance fades | Everton

There are weeks that can define a club's season and then there are weeks that can define a club's future. It is no exaggeration to suggest that the latter awaits Everton. Monday brings a must-win first division home game against Crystal Palace, the only team Everton have beaten in their last 11 games.

The liberation of victory in that FA Cup Third Round Replay It turned out to be fleeting, since 10 days later they were eliminated in the fourth round against Luton. There is no date set in the diary, but Everton are also anticipating a verdict this week on their appeal against a 10-point deduction for a single breach of the Premier League's sustainability and profits rules. The ramifications will be considerable when it arrives.

The return of points already won on the field by Sean Dyche's team would obviously help in their fight against relegation but, by virtue of an independent commission accepting some or all of the club's arguments, it should also strengthen Everton's defense against the second load of the PSR that was brought in last month. However, if the appeal is lost, not only will the 10-point penalty stand, but the threat of a second point deduction before the end of the season will increase. The second charge, after all, covers two thirds of the period so Everton have already been found guilty of a £19.5m breach.

A club that is third from the bottom, heavily indebted, whose ownership situation is shrouded in uncertainty and which is currently run by an interim chief executive and an interim chief financial officer, would be at serious risk to host the football championship in its last season at Goodison Park. And Palace believe they have problems.

Unless the 10 points are recovered (which seems unlikely considering Everton admitted breaching the PSR by £9.7m at October hearing – the risk of a first relegation in 73 years is real. Everton insisted the appeal was their main focus when the Premier League charged them for a second time in January. The appeal occupied the first paragraph of a business update last week from commercial and communications director Richard Kenyon, who revealed progress was being made on a naming rights deal for the new stadium at Bramley-Moore Dock.

But an appeal that has understandably absorbed the club's time cannot distract from the onerous task facing a team that has lost potency, energy and momentum since Christmas. Dyche says he'd rather deal with reality than maybes. The reality is that Everton desperately need the appeal to go their way as, as it stands, they are running out of avenues to save themselves on the pitch.

Everton were on a good run before receiving the biggest sporting penalty in Premier League history in November. Subsequently, Dyche's challenging team easily managed to climb from second place from the bottom of the table with four consecutive victories. The fourth in the sequence. came to burnley on December 16. Everton made it 2-0 at half-time when top scorer Abdoulaye Doucouré retired with a hamstring injury. They haven't won a league game since.

The subsequent crisis includes home and away games with Manchester City and Tottenham, but also two morale-damaging cup exits at Goodison against Fulham and Luton. Dyche maintains that Everton have greatly underperformed recently in the 3-0 away defeat in Wolves. Otherwise, character and commitment have been fine, but the lack of threat in open play has been evident throughout the barren run.

Everton's forward line is not doing enough to ease the burden on the team's often impressive defence. Dominic Calvert-Lewin has not scored in 18 games. Beto's contributions from the bench have served to demonstrate why Calvert-Lewin continues to be a starter despite his goal drought.

Doucouré has missed 10 of the last 11 games after aggravating the injury in their comeback against Aston Villa. The return of last season's relegation savior, who has resumed full training, will fuel Everton's hopes of another escape provided he remains fit. The influential midfielder has been the only notable absentee from the team that impressively beat Newcastle and Chelsea before Christmas.

Dyche explored several alternatives during Doucouré's free time (James Garner, Jack Harrison, André Gomes and Arnaut Danjuma) but with little success. His options beyond a small core of first-team talent are limited, hence the lack of rotation that plagued Everton over the festive period. The spark that was lit with a sanction that the club described as “totally disproportionate and unfair” has gone out. It needs to be revived urgently, regardless of the appeal verdict.

The Everton case, while the result of years of mismanagement that sparked massive fan protests against owner Farhad Moshiri and the club's former board, has exposed serious flaws in the Premier League's regulatory framework. The case for an independent regulator has become even stronger. Suspicion among Evertonians that the Premier League has used their club as a convenient scapegoat to demonstrate that an independent regulator is not necessary has hardened since the appeal.

The culture, media and sport committee was so unimpressed by Richard Masters' appearance last month that it wrote to Sports Minister Stuart Andrew asking for the Football Governance Bill to be introduced as soon as possible. Another request that, in the interests of transparency, the Premier League reveal how it arrived at its own formula for deducting points from Everton was rejected by the organisation's chief executive. Masters responded: “As the committee will appreciate, as a private company, it is not our practice to provide or publish minutes of Premier League board meetings. “We are also unable to publish submissions made by the Premier League board or executive as part of confidential legal proceedings.”

Behind one disaster lies another, in the form of 777 Partners' protracted takeover of Everton. It has been 156 days since the announcement that the controversial US investment firm had agreed to buy Moshiri's majority stake and the deal is still awaiting Premier League approval.

By comparison, there were 51 days between the deal and approval of Sir Jim Ratcliffe's investment in Manchester United. The delay seems understandable in light of the 777 legal disputes in the US and Masters' comment to the CMS committee that some acquisitions inevitably take longer than others “if we have not received satisfactory answers to the questions we have asked.” . A separate and unanswered question is why Moshiri remains committed to the 777 deal when there is interest in his involvement from elsewhere.

777 remains optimistic, saying Premier League approval could come this month. Despite the impasse, company officials attended Everton matches, visited the Finch Farm training ground and the club's offices in Liver Buildings. The structure of 777's deal with Moshiri is understood to mean he will pay less for Everton if they are relegated from the Premier League. Meanwhile, more funding needs to be raised to complete construction of the stadium at Bramley-Moore Dock. A truly decisive period.