Chris Beesley examines a key talking point following Everton's 2-0 defeat at Manchester City
Chris Beesley
Chris Beesley
ECHO Everton reporter Chris Beesley has covered Everton and Liverpool both in the Premier League and abroad since 2005. He cut his teeth in professional sports journalism at the Ellesmere Port Pioneer and then the Welsh edition of the Daily Post, where he also covered Manchester United. Prior to that he worked on the student newspaper Pluto at the University of Central Lancashire, a role in which he first encountered David Moyes. Chris is well-known for his sartorial elegance and the aforementioned Scottish manager once enquired of him at a press conference: "Is that your dad's suit you've got on?" while the tradition continued in 2023 with new Blues boss Sean Dyche complimenting him on his smart appearance.
After digesting another game where Erling Haaland hardly has a kick for almost an hour, but then scores with his first chance to put Manchester City on their way to another victory over Everton, after Beto had twice fluffed his lines when presented with opportunities to put his side ahead, beleaguered Blues woke up on Sunday to be told that not one but two of their recent managers were in the frame to become the new Nottingham Forest boss.
A report in the Independent claimed that Forest want Marco Silva to replace Ange Postecoglou, in addition to Sean Dyche and Roberto Mancini.
For those who thought Nuno Espirito Santo, who had secured European qualification for Forest on the back of a counter-attacking, possession-light approach (they’d been on course for the Champions League until they were derailed by Abdoulaye Doucoure’s stoppage-time winner for Everton on April 12) and Postecoglou with his high-line defence were chalk and cheese, what about those names for an unlikely ‘Holy Trinity?’
Silva might be first choice, but he looks the toughest to get given that we’re told Fulham would want £10milllion (Farhad Moshiri once footed a similar bill after sacking Roberto Martinez) for his services – he is understood to have a £13million buyout clause and is reluctant to move mid-season – but the Portuguese tactician has worked under owner Evangelos Marinakis previously having delivered the Greek title for him at Olympiakos in 2017.
The report adds that Dyche is extremely keen on the job, having previously described it as an ambition due to being a boyhood Forest fan, but is reluctant to accept a short-term contract, but the club only want to commit to a longer-term deal if they feel it is the right choice, given the instability there this season.
By the way, “boyhood Forest fan,” seems like a bit of poetic licence. Dyche started his career as an apprentice at the City Ground and still lives in the area but when he was in charge at Burnley, he remarked: “I was a 70s child so everyone was a Liverpool fan but I lived in Kettering so I couldn't get up there all the time, I was a distant Liverpool fan.”
He also stated that Kenny Dalglish was his favourite player, but such childhood allegiances were understandably underplayed by Dyche during his time as Blues boss, who would instead reference visits to matches at his hometown team Kettering instead.
Euro 2020-winning manager Mancini would also command a very high wage with the Italian, who steered Manchester City to the first of their Premier League titles in 2012, out of work since leaving the Saudi Arabia national team job last year.
Given Marinakis’ twitchy trigger finger, perhaps plenty more on the managerial merry-go-round might get the chance and there are plenty of ex-Everton managers out there given that the aforementioned Moshiri – the only other majority shareholder to preside over a punishment for a PSR breach churned through eight in as many years during his Goodison Park tenure – but Forest’s prospect of a third ‘permanent’ (that’s always something of a contradiction in football at the best of times) manager of the season before the clocks go back takes some doing.
Back when the Blues were blowing the budget on Barcelona reserves, durable performers such as Jean-Philippe Gbamin plus Fabian Delph and a supposed Juventus wonderkid, who was not even the best M.Kean(e) finisher at the club behind centre-back Michael, Silva guided the team to eighth place in the Premier League.
But then even Sam Allardyce had achieved that the previous year, playing a rather different brand of football, in his supposed relegation battle, and by the time he was relieved of his duties the team were in the relegation zone in December on the back of a 5-2 thrashing against Liverpool at Anfield and had infamously never come from behind to win a top flight game in his tenure.
And therein lies the rub. Silva was fine beating Manchester United 4-0 in the April sunshine but when the going got tough, his Everton teams never got going.
Many wondered whether he’d work in England again after his chastening experience on Merseyside, but as well as he has done to rehabilitate his reputation in the cosy confines of Craven Cottage, where aesthetically pleasing football is tolerated in a low-pressure environment, going through that revolving door by the banks of the Trent is a far different proposition, whether or not you’ve set sail with the big, bearded shipping magnate from Piraeus before.
Perhaps Postecoglou, also born in the environs of Athens was viewed as a fellow Hellene when he was appointed on September 9, but the man who moved to Melbourne aged five, was an Aussie when he was shown the exit just 19 minutes after the full-time whistle blew on their 3-0 home defeat to Chelsea, a subject that soon became the main topic of conversation across the Etihad Stadium press box before kick-off.
But while Postecoglou failed to bounce back from being axed by Tottenham Hotspur less than five months earlier, despite delivering their first silverware in 17 years, others, like Silva, showed there was life after Moshiri.
Martinez has landed a couple of international football’s plum posts one after the other, first taking charge of Belgium’s ‘Golden generation’ and then leading Cristiano Ronaldo and company with Portugal.
When ‘El Clasico’ in 2021/22, the biggest game in the world in club football, pitted Ronald Koeman’s Barcelona against a Real Madrid side guided by Carlo Ancelotti (the only one of these bosses to jump rather than be pushed at Goodison) then Evertonians could be forgiven for thinking they had entered into some kind of strange dream as the planet reset itself after the impact of the coronavirus pandemic.
Among all this chaos though, there is one constant and that’s the one manager that Moshiri never hired or fired, despite several attempts to return on his watch, David Moyes.
Even European football’s most-decorated coach Ancelotti couldn’t deliver at Everton and Moyes is arguably the only man to do so on a long-term basis in the Premier League era, a feat that even eluded the club’s most successful manager Howard Kendall in his second and then third stints, plus the Blues’ most-recent trophy-winning boss, Joe Royle.
Along with nine top-eight finishes, including a highest-ever Premier League placing of fourth in 2004/05, Moyes guided Everton to a dozen wins over Manchester City during his first spell in charge.
Those triumphs could not be replicated this time around as Erling Haaland’s prolific finishing contrasted sharply with Beto’s profligacy in front of goal.
But as the Blues now prepare to host Spurs again – the team he took his first three points against after returning in January – they can still feel reassured that after the assorted cast of pretenders and a reign of chaos, their rightful leader is now back on his throne as they look to extend their unbeaten record at Hill Dickinson Stadium and that is a key factor in taking things forward at this pivotal time in the club’s history.