Allardyce seeks backing with Brands on the way to Everton

Everton’s summer overhaul has gathered pace with PSV Eindhoven sporting director Marcel Brands confirming he is preparing to join the club.

The Dutchman will oversee changes in “football operations”. Manager Sam Allardyce and director of football Steve Walsh are seeking clarity on their futures, and Brands is believed to be targeting PSV’S Mexican winger Hirving Lozano and Ajax’s Hakim Ziyech.

Brands said the first contact with Everton came in 2016. “I have said ‘no’ to beautiful clubs in Germany and I am with the best club in the Netherlands. Saying goodbye to the people at this club will be the hardest thing for me,” he added.

Once in place at Everton, he is likely to oversee fundamental changes, although Allardyce has not given up on winning the support of the fans as he offered another defence of his reign by arguing he inherited “chaos”.

Allardyce faces the Gwladys Street for the first time since the New man: PSV Eindhoven sporting director Marcel Brands is bound for Everton club encouraged fans to rate the manager’s period in charge. “You win fans over by winning football matches and winning them in style,” said Allardyce, ahead of tonight’s visit of Newcastle. “You can only do what you do and work as hard as you possibly can with the

squad and the players you have got to deliver what you can. That has been a difficult challenge.”

Allardyce feels he deserves more credit for ending any relegation fears. “We have managed to overcome the chaos,” he said. “Even David Unsworth said he could not wait for the new manager to be appointed. He was in for eight games and he was saying before the West Ham game, ‘get me out of this position, get a new manager appointed because I am struggling to cope and these players have got no confidence’. That is where I came from.”

Although Unsworth oversaw the final victory of his caretaker reign, Allardyce says that was due to his arrival. “I came in for West Ham and spoke to the players,” he said. “It helped have a positive effect. David does the last game and he gets the win. Where we have gone from there, I consider it my contri-