Everton have struggled all over the pitch this season and have fallen into a scrap to maintain their Premier League status amid the backdrop of regular protests at Goodison Park regarding how the club has been allowed to deteriorate on and off the pitch.
Beyond the summer, many of their regular first-team players will need to wait and see what the future holds with regard to their future, including the likes of Tom Davies, Yerry Mina and Abdoulaye Doucoure, who are all out of contract, with the latter having an option to extend his stay.
Key men Amadou Onana, Jordan Pickford and Dominic Calvert-Lewin have also attracted transfer interest from elsewhere, potentially bringing around a long summer window as the Toffees try to plan for the long term beyond this season.
In modern times, Everton boss Sean Dyche must wish that he could rewind the clock or at least have someone close to embodying the talent of the late Alan Ball, who plied his trade at Goodison Park between the years of 1966 and 1971 and earned legendary status among supporters.
What did Alan Ball manage to achieve at Everton?
Ball arrived at Everton following a summer that saw England win their inaugural and only World Cup triumph to date in 1966, joining from Blackpool for a then-record fee of £110,000.
As the famous rendition of 'if you know your history' goes, the Farnworth-born hero then went on to form a midfield trio with Howard Kendall and Colin Harvey known as the Holy Trinity, which eventually led to a statue being built outside Goodison Park to commemorate their exploits on the blue half of Merseyside, as per The Liverpool Echo.
During his time at the Blues, Ball played a starring role in Everton's 1969/70 First Division triumph, in a campaign where Everton lost just five matches from 42 matches on their way to sealing their seventh top-flight title at the time.
The former England international, who was sold for what was a record fee of £220k, was the perfect archetype of a centre midfielder, strong in the tackle, energetic, with a great eye for a pass and a penchant for putting the ball in the back of the net, something he managed to do 71 times in 251 appearances for the club.
Speaking to Football FanCast, journalist Paul Brown paid tribute to the World Cup winner in a recent interview, saying: "You could pick anyone from any of Everton's great sides and they would easily walk into this team in any position and make a huge difference. You could talk about either no Peter Reid or go back further to World Cup winner Alan Ball, you know. It's kind of fantasy football to imagine those guys playing in this team, but I would feel sorry for anyone that good being parachuted into a team this bad."
Southampton legend Mike Channon was close friends with Ball and gave an insight into his playing style speaking to The Daily Mail in 2017, stating: "He had a great football brain. Quick feet, quick brain. For a midfielder he scored a lot of goals. People just thought he was a running machine, especially in the early days with the World Cup and that. But he was a great footballer."
All in all, Ball was a sporting hero and would be an asset to any modern-day side in his prime as a footballer and he is rightfully still heralded as one of Everton's greatest ever players.
