Everton’s search for a new manager lurches into a second week with the club in desperate need of a solution in the final days of the January transfer window.
Rafael Benitez’s departure after just 200 days in charge was welcomed with relief by a large section of the fanbase, with the understanding that it was the club cutting their losses on a project that was doomed to failure from the start.
Removing the former Liverpool boss was the admittance of a mistake, but taking away his connections with their Merseyside neighbours, it was also an acceptance that Everton were hurtling towards the relegation zone at a time when the club can ill-afford to lose their top-flight status.
Fast forward a week, and the early signs of an immediate replacement being appointed looks unlikely. The list of those linked to the vacancy is now in double figures and, while those who are considered genuine contenders currently numbers less than half-a-dozen, the club are still canvassing prospective candidates with only three on a potential shortlist so far.
Image: Everton are five points off the relegation zone
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It has been the same whenever majority shareholder Farhad Moshiri has removed a manager since arriving nearly six years ago.
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In that time, he has seen off Roberto Martinez, Ronald Koeman, Sam Allardyce, Marco Silva and Benitez – and might well have parted company with Carlo Ancelotti before the Italian took his opportunity to make an early exit himself last summer.
On the day Benitez was sacked, Ancelotti was winning the first piece of silverware during his second coming at Real Madrid. The Italian can surely have no regrets, and yet part of this familiar scattergun approach to finding the seventh permanent boss of Moshiri’s six-year tenure has included former manager Martinez among those on his shortlist.
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Image: Rafael Benitez was sacked after just six months in charge
Forget coming full circle; Everton have spent a net £200 million to go backwards since 2016. The next fortnight will prove critical in the club’s season after a winter sleepwalking into a relegation battle. Saturday’s 1-0 home defeat to Aston Villa ended with disgruntled fans staging a sit-in protest against the board.
“No Communication, No Plan, No Vision,” was the message on one banner, spelling out the issues running deep.
Bill Kenwright was also the subject of another, with the Everton chairman beating a hasty retreat from his seat in the Main Stand – only to then acknowledge supporter anguish on the Goodison Road. Despite not wielding the power since selling virtually all his shares in Moshiri’s 2016 buy out, the theatre impresario is still keen to exert some influence at boardroom level.
Everton’s next Premier League opponents Newcastle, whom they face in a relegation six-pointer on February 8, have already spent £25m to take striker Chris Wood from Burnley and with the riches at their disposal are likely to buy again before the window closes.
Image: Everton fans hold a protest banner against Benitez
The Blues need to do something to jolt them out of their current slump as, since the start of October, all the teams below them – Norwich (16), Newcastle (12), Watford (seven) and Burnley (10) – have accrued more points than their paltry six.
The hope was that Duncan Ferguson could replicate the same impact he had as caretaker boss across three league games in December 2019 when filling in following the dismissal of Silva.
A 3-1 victory over Chelsea alleviated the pressure on the board to make a swift appointment then, with the January window still around the corner.
Image: A plane with the message "22 years of failure, Bill" on Saturday
It lifted Everton out of the relegation zone up to 14th, still only two points from safety. While the club are currently five points off the drop with games in hand over some of their rivals, this feels far more precarious.
Things are different now, with the club set to move into their new £500m stadium at Bramley-Moore Dock at the start of the 2024/25 season.
At least they ought to be. With just a week left of the window, the threat to Everton’s position as an ever-present in the Premier League and top-division outfit since 1954 hasn’t felt this real since the 1997/98 campaign under Howard Kendall.
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Highlights from Aston Villa’s win against Everton
Why would club return to Pereira?
Image: Pereira left Fenerbahce in December
When Silva was dismissed just over two years ago, one man who was heavily linked to becoming his successor was Vitor Pereira. The 53-year-old had been in negotiations with the Toffees across a seven-day period and was understood to be the leading candidate before he removed himself from the application process.
While managing in the Chinese Super League, Pereira exclusively told Sky Sports: “It’s always an honour and I am utterly grateful to be considered on a list by a club that I have so much respect for. At this point, I am still the coach of SIPG a club close to my heart in a country that is growing immensely in football.
“Currently I am not in a position to make any other commitments. I cannot decide now, I need time to think and plan my future by looking at all the options I have.
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Derby boss Wayne Rooney says he is flattered to be linked with the vacant manager’s position at Everton, but says there has been no approach and his focus is with his current club.
“It’s a league I love and yes for sure I would love to consider an opportunity in the future.”
That opportunity appears before him again now, with reports in Portugal this weekend claiming he is on his way to Merseyside for advanced talks.
Pereira is available having most recently endured an unsuccessful stint at Fenerbahce, leaving the Turkish giants fifth position in the table and 14 points off the leaders. If he wasn’t appointed in 2019, why is he in the frame again now?
Image: Fans stage a sit-in protest against the board
His admirers will point to the fact he has managed a number of top European clubs including Porto, where he won back-to-back Portuguese top-flight titles, and Olympiakos, where he won a Greek domestic double in 2015.
But he also has the unwanted record of having relegated 1860 Munich to the German third-tier during his six months as manager in 2016/17.
Pereira only arrived in the January of that season but could only win six of his 20 games, leading to recriminations over who was responsible.
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Vitor Pereira exclusively explained to Sky Sports News why he withdrew from Everton’s process of selecting their next permanent manager in December 2019
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“Nobody around the club ever expected or wanted that we dropped to the third division,” an 1860 Munich club statement read at the time. “We know that this scenario is not acceptable. In such a situation, there are only losers unfortunately.”
There were no winners either at Everton from getting the Benitez appointment horribly wrong.
1860 Munich consulted Kia Joorabchian before appointing Pereira, and the super agent was spotted in owner Moshiri’s director’s box at Goodison Park on Saturday.
Whether Pereira is the right profile to take over Everton now, in the midst of an identity crisis and at the wrong end of the table, is far from obvious – especially at a time when the club are set to do away with their obligation to hold annual General Meetings with shareholders.
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Everton interim manager Duncan Ferguson says that he is gutted for the fans after the result but could not fault his players performances against Aston Villa.
His previous experience of a relegation battle suggests he is not the firefighter Everton currently require.
A search which started with Frank Lampard, Wayne Rooney, Jose Mourinho and Martinez being sounded out for a return before the Belgian FA blocked an approach – and even had Fabio Cannavaro’s name added out of nowhere – has now predictably come back to the perennially-linked Pereira being on the shortlist.
He will, like Benitez and those before him, want to prove his best days in the dug-out are still to come. An unusual international break in January has provided Everton with some much-needed breathing space to consider their next move.
Image: Everton will feel they have enough quality to pull away
The dilemma Moshiri has is that the manager he needs right now to get them out of trouble is probably not the man required to turn around an eight-year decline at a club currently without an established internal football structure and undergoing a strategic review.
Everton have no director of football, head of recruitment or scouting chief – so effectively no expert football knowledge at the top of the club. It means Moshiri will again have the final say.
He does not have to make any snap decisions, but he cannot afford to get it wrong again.
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