Everton £10m Silva bid snubbed again

Everton have failed in a fresh approach to hire manager Marco Silva. The Daily Telegraph understands that Watford have been offered £10 million to release Silva from his two-year contract but have, again, insisted he will not be allowed to leave at any price.

It is understood that Everton are prepared to pay Silva £3.5 million a season. He is earning £2.6 million plus bonuses at Watford.

Everton had an approach rejected on Monday, when they made the offer of £10 million, and called Watford again yesterday morning to try to enter into negotiations. No improved offer was made but Watford have argued it would be pointless, anyway.

Given the stakes of £100 millionplus in broadcast revenue alone, per season, for staying in the top flight the club do not want to jeopardise their status by letting the 40-yearold Portuguese leave.

Silva emerged as Everton’s top target to replace Ronald Koeman, who was sacked after a poor start to the season following a summer of heavy spending orchestrated by majority shareholder Farhad Moshiri. After being rejected by Watford, however, Everton did plan an approach for Sam Allardyce, but he has formally withdrawn from the Goodison reckoning.

Former England coach Allardyce was under consideration, along with Burnley’s Sean Dyche and the current caretaker David Unsworth, who is now likely to take charge of Saturday’s league match at fellow relegation strugglers Crystal Palace.

Allardyce told Talksport that he was no longer interested in the job. “It never materialised as I thought it would, unfortunately,” he said. “For me, such a long time without a decision, I had to make a decision myself. The decision was, it was probably better it wasn’t me, and I’d move on to something else. It didn’t feel right.”