The future of Everton manager David Moyes remains up in the air at least until the end of the season, with initial noises out of Goodison Park arguing that the 49-year-old could be interested in taking on a new challenge if the side don’t break their silverware duck this term, but where would the club even look if he did actually follow through and leave?
Stability is a precious commodity in football and something every club craves, whether as some sort of soundbite after just sacking a manager like Venky’s puppet Shebby Singh used when explaining Michael Appleton’s recent departure or as the ultimate long-term goal behind a period of transition – a state which plenty of teams such as Tottenham, Liverpool and Chelsea are thought to be going through right now.
However, when the club has been formed solely in one man’s image, like Arsenal and Manchester United have been with Arsene Wenger and Sir Alex Ferguson, change can be an extremely difficult thing to comprehend. Everything from the balance of the squad which is catered to a particular style of play, youth-system and scouting network is geared around the man in the dugout and their power grows the longer they stay in the role, so after over a decade at the club, the job of inheriting Moyes’ squad and improving upon his legacy while keeping in mind the fiscal discipline required to keep them competitive and it’s a post few would take with relish.
You only have to cast your eyes at the bookmakers to see that nobody really has a clue what will happen should Moyes depart for pastures new – Wigan boss Roberto Martinez is the favourite at the moment across the board, but with the Latics stuck in the relegation zone and with eight games of the campaign left to play, will they really want to appoint a man fresh from taking a club down into the Championship? If they go down, the genial Spaniard’s stock falls rapidly and while he may deserve a crack at a bigger job, playing a passing game without the necessary players to carry it off successfully, often applauded by many neutrals, doesn’t constitute the sort of management that’s keep Everton where they are for the past few years.
Current assistant manager Steve Round is broadly seen as the second favourite, but he may be seen as a decent continuity appointment, ensuring Moyes’ legacy is preserved, and having been number two in the England job, he’s used to the sort of scrutiny that would come with making the step up. Nevertheless, the flip side of that coin is he could be seen as a massive gamble in his first managerial job and history is littered with people that made good coaches but have struggled to bridge that gap, with Carlos Queiroz perhaps the best example.
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You simply can’t imagine an old-fashioned club such as Everton would go abroad for a new manager, particularly keeping in mind that the new man in the job will have to scrap ti make ends meet. While the Premier League has the prestige and the club has the pedigree, in terms of a financial package and operating budget, many may choose to bide their time and wait for something that leaves them a bit more wriggle room.
Of course, both Gus Poyet and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer are carving out decent reputations for themselves at Brighton and Molde and would represent a similar appointment to the one that Kenwright made by bringing Moyes in from Preston in 2002 – an up-and-coming young manager with fresh ideas and they’d command the respect of players due to their playing achievements in the top flight. They are foreign, but they are both household names and familiar with the league and what the club stands for. The last thing the supporters want is a fish out of water type appointment like Tottenham have been guilty of far too many times in the past with Christian Gross, Jacques Santini and Juande Ramos.
Mark Hughes has a history of managing clubs of the rivals he played for, but having turned out for Everton towards the end of his playing career as some sort of horrible holding man, which at the time was bizarrely termed as ‘using his experience’, he could buck that trend at Goodison Park. His stock has never been lower than right now after the disastrous job he did at QPR, but when there’s not much money to spend, like he had at Blackburn and Fulham, he can work wonders, it’s just when he’s given leeway with transfers that he can come to seem like a clueless kid in a sweet shop like at Manchester City and Loftus Road. It doubtless wouldn’t be a popular move, but he has his merits and would jump at the chance to restore his reputation, seemingly destined never to get a crack at a top four job again now.
Lokomotiv Moscow boss and former Croatia head coach Slaven Bilic can also count on a past affiliation with Merseyside during an injury-hit three-year spell between 1997-2000 after moving from West Ham. He left in controversial circumstances, though, being given a million-pound payoff, representing around half of the balance remaining on his lucrative contract which still had 28 months to run, after being told he could find a new club. This bitter end to a frustrating period towards the end of his career, with the 44-year-old never shy of a word or two and he may be seen as too hard to handle and control for the naturally cautious Kenwright.
Aside from the usual customers (Alan Curbishley is at 33/1 shock of shocks, just like he is for every vacant post), any move Kenwright makes will oversee a radical shift at the club as opposed to the gradual and at times leisurely pace of evolution that’s gripped Goodison Park the past few seasons. My hunch if Moyes should depart would be for either Solskjaer or Martinez, with Poyet a decent outside shout, but the task of replacing the Scot successfully is something the odds simply can’t tell you.
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