Everton legend Neville Southall has issued a defiant message of unity in the wake of the club being handed the biggest points deduction in the history of English top flight football.

An independent commission docked Everton an immediate 10 points – one more than the previous highest dished out to Portsmouth for entering administration in 2010 – after being found to have breached the Premier League’s financial rules.

Southall, who made a club record 751 appearances for the Blues as well as being their most-decorated player having won two League Championships, two FA Cups and the European Cup-Winners’ Cup during his 16-year stint as goalkeeper between 1981-97, tweeted: “The Premier League doing what nobody has managed in last few years, bringing the board the and the fans together.

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“(I’d) Love to play for Everton now, the motivation of everyone is through the roof. Every point we get will be a shove it where the sun doesn’t shine to them.”

Southall, 65, made similar comments in the spring of 2022 when Everton were involved in a relegation battle under Frank Lampard. The former Wales international said: “You have got to have a siege mentality.

“You have got to go, you know what there’s nobody initially that wants us to stay up, there’s nobody in the media that wants us to stay up. You know what we need to do it ourselves and then we can shove it back in their faces at the end of the season.”