MARCO LEFT TO DANGLE
I FEEL for Marco Silva. His press conference before the Leicester game was a car crash, because he had to admit he wasn’t the person to be answering the questions.
It seems unfair to the point of cruelty to send a manager out to face the media, knowing his job is on the line and the board have not uttered one word in support of him. In fact, they’ve been deafening in their silence.
That says only one thing, and he knows it. He knows they are leaving him to dangle.
He knows the prospects of getting the results he needs away to Leicester today and Liverpool on Wednesday night are remote to the point of laughable. I don’t envy him that.
Management is a lonely job. I’m experiencing it myself now in Australia, and I’m loving it. But I can see how tiny things can turn against a team and you don’t get the results you deserve, and then the pressure’s on.
Silva (above) is in a difficult situation. I think the spending at Everton in the past few years has raised expectations beyond the point of logic.
Yes, they’ve spent a lot of money, but enough to smash into the top four? Do me a favour.
But that creates pressure. And of course, they are far too good to be in the relegation zone, which is a real possibility by Christmas.
Managers always live and die by results and Silva knows that.
But he also knows he deserves a bit of dignity, and I don’t think the press conference and the situation at Goodison over the past week has offered him that.
But then, nothing should amaze me about football right now. I’m not exactly shocked that Unai Emery has been sacked – given the impatience in the modern game, it was coming from weeks ago. Yet I can’t get my head around how he’s taken every single bit of criticism, when there’s been so much aimed from every angle. What about the players? What about the board? How the hell have they got off so lightly? All the players need to take a long, hard look at themselves. This team is so far away from those great Arsenal teams of the past, that it almost feels like an insult. Where’s the character of Patrick Vieira, the class of Thierry Henry? Where is the collective responsibility? It’s like they’ve constructed a team who hide at the first setback, and can’t make a decision of their own. It’s something I’ve noticed in recent years – players don’t seem to be able to sort things out themselves any more. They’re so used to taking