The Courier & Advertiser (Perth and Perthshire Edition)
Koeman pays price for Everton’s woeful start
SACKING: Toffees part company with Dutchman after 16 months in charge
Ronald Koeman has been sacked as Everton manager, leaving an expensively assembled squad in the Premier League relegation zone.
The Toffees sit 18th in the Premier League after winning just two of their opening nine league games, as well as bottom of their Europa League pool, and the Dutchman has paid the price.
Koeman led the club to a seventhplaced finish last season, his only full campaign at the helm after arriving from Southampton, but has had a torrid time of late.
Two home defeats in four days, 2-1 to Lyon in the Europa League and 5-2 against Arsenal on Sunday, and the chorus of boos which greeted each result proved the end of the line for 54-year-old.
He arrived at the club’s Finch Farm training base as usual yesterday morning but within a matter of hours was out of a job.
Chairman Bill Kenwright and chief executive Robert Elstone were later reported arriving on site unexpectedly and the Dutchman’s dismissal was confirmed soon after.
A statement from the club read: “Chairman Bill Kenwright, the board of directors and major shareholder Farhad Moshiri would all like to express their gratitude to Ronald for the service he has given to the club over the past 16 months and for guiding the club to seventh place in last season’s Premier League campaign.”
That brief note did not state who would take interim charge, nor confirm the likely exit of Koeman’s brother Erwin from the staff, but under-23 boss David Unsworth is expected to step up for tomorrow’s Carabao Cup clash at Chelsea.
Unsworth, who briefly acted as caretaker when Roberto Martinez was sacked at the end of the 2015/16 campaign is also considered a candidate for the top job.
Burnley’s Sean Dyche is seen as an attainable option from within the Premier League while former Toffees favourite David Moyes, eager for a top-flight return after leaving relegated Sunderland, spent 11 largely successful years on Merseyside before an ill-fated move to Manchester United.
Whoever eventually takes over at Goodison Park will inherit a squad with just two wins and eight points from nine league matches.
They will also find a squad many consider to be poorly balanced, with a surfeit of creatives in the number 10 mould and no adequate replacement for their former front man Romelu Lukaku.
Gylfi Sigurdsson and Davy Klaassen cost almost £70m between them and Wayne Rooney was brought back from Old Trafford on a high-profile free transfer but Lukaku’s fire power is sorely lacking.
A further £55m was spent on goalkeeper Jordan Pickford and defender Michael Keane, yet the Toffees have conceded 18 goals in nine league games and only rock-bottom Crystal Palace have a worse goal difference.