While the business end of the Premier League takes shape today at the Emirates, an impressive modern stadium that generates revenues of about £3m per match, the Merseyside derby will be played out at Goodison Park, a down-at-heel venue that struggles to pull in £800,000 on a good day.

Over the course of a single season, the match-day revenue gap between Arsenal, genuine top-four contenders, and Everton, the over-achieving part of the Merseyside equation, is more than £40m, with Manchester United even further ahead. Liverpool is in much the same boat as Everton. Anfield has a slightly larger capacity than Goodison (45,000 against 40,000) but that leaves it almost as far adrift of Arsenal and Manchester United over the course of a season. Chelsea is the odd one out in the top four, with a capacity of just 42,000 at Stamford Bridge, but a billionaire Russian owner helps to smooth over the revenue shortfall.

For Everton and Liverpool, the stadium problem is pressing. Both want to redevelop, but both have run into severe difficulties. Work on Liverpool's new home at Stanley Park is, at best, stalled by the credit crunch while Everton's plans have just been scuppered by planning problems. Commercial logic suggests that the two clubs should join forces to create a purpose-built shared stadium, but commercial logic is all too easily trumped by tradition and enmity.

It is far more likely that both clubs will load up the debt -- when they can -- and build two new stadia, rather than sharing a ground and dividing the spoils. Opponents to ground-sharing will say that even in Europe it is running out of fashion, that the Milan teams are exploring separate venues rather than sharing the San Siro and the Romans, too, want to go their separate ways. That is true, but there is a vast difference between sharing an old, multi-use stadium and sharing a modern, purpose-built, jointly-owned football stadium.

A single stadium in Liverpool could clock up revenues of at least £100m in a season, offering a remarkably rapid payback followed by serious, long-term profitability so long as both clubs managed a modicum of on-field success. And that's before the naming rights have been sold, or additional revenues from cup runs, European finals or World Cup matches in 2015 (rugby) and 2018 (if the England bid succeeds) are factored in.

Success founded on co-operation, however, is likely to remain a pipe dream. Far more likely is that today's contest will be replayed season after season: a mid-table joust of little relevance outside the city limits, spiced up occasionally when Liverpool mounts a sporadic challenge or Everton flirts with relegation.

Unless they are prepared to think the unthinkable, or unless they both find a Roman Abramovich, they risk a dangerous downward spiral. Stadium capacity really does matter because without an adequate number of seats (and, critically, corporate boxes) the financial gap can only be closed by a billionaire. For now, they are in decreasing supply.

Liverpool's on-field problems are not, of course, entirely down to money. Rafael Benitez (pictured) has proved to be singularly incapable of building a squad that can win the Premiership even though he has been remarkably successful in European competition. Until now. The club's embarrassing departure from the Champions League last week, with one round still to play, is not just a financial disaster for the club: it represents an unravelling of a strategy that could only be justified by continued European success. Benitez's eccentricities -- in selection, transfer activities and general churlishness -- could be tolerated while he delivered European cash and trophies, even if the Premier League eluded him. But now, as Liverpool's season unravels, his demise appears inevitable.

He cannot shoulder all the blame for Liverpool's problems -- dysfunctional owners, boardroom splits and some bizarre transfers have all played a part -- but shared responsibility never shields a manager from taking the rap for failure. Liverpool's season has now become a dogfight for Champions League qualification.

For Everton, the future is even bleaker. David Moyes has worked miracles with limited resources but this season he has been undone by injuries to key players and, perhaps, by the unsettling saga that preceded the sale of Joleon Lescott to Manchester City. Moyes, unlike Benitez, is in no danger of being sacked but defeat today would consign him to a fraught Christmas and a season-long campaign against the drop.

Sharing a stadium would not magically solve either clubs' problems, but it would provide a solid financial base. Going their separate ways leaves them both dangerously vulnerable. Liverpool's chances of survival are greater, but the longer they wait to build a new stadium, the further they fall behind their rivals for the top four while the cost of building it, if not shared, could cause further damage.

Commercial logic may be unpopular with both sets of fans but without it the sporting logic points towards failure.

Sunday Independent