SILVA TO REPLACE FURIOUS BIG SAM
Everton payouts will top £30m after Allardyce axe
FARHAD Moshiri’s desire to implement a new management structure at Everton is set to cost the club’s major shareholder more than £30million in compensation.
Marco Silva, the Portuguese who has been out of work since Watford sacked him in January, will succeed Sam Allardyce and could be appointed next week, with Everton officials having already contacted his representatives.
It was no surprise Allardyce’s miserable spell in charge, which lasted 162 days, ended yesterday, following a meeting with Moshiri in London. Cruelly, it came on the day England, who began their World Cup campaign under Allardyce, announced their squad for Russia.
The 63-year-old described himself as being ‘disgusted’ with his treatment but he still received a severance package of more than £5million.
Allardyce became the third manager Moshiri has sacked in the space of two years and four days. Roberto Martinez, who was axed on May 12, 2016, walked away with a £10million payoff, while his successor Ronald Koeman — sacked last October but now in charge of Holland — is having the bulk of his £6million annual salary paid until the summer.
Moshiri will have to continue paying, though, in order to secure Silva’s services. Everton made an offer of £12million to Watford last October, which was rejected, in an attempt to secure him after Koeman’s departure but it left them accused of making an illegal approach.
Watford have gone to Premier League arbitration but Everton are hoping to reach a financial agreement with Vicarage Road officials. With Silva (below) being out of work, the offer is unlikely to be as much as it was last autumn but it will still be a significant amount.
The removal of Allardyce was the catalyst for a dramatic eight hours at Goodison Park, with Steve Walsh relieved of his duties as director of football and having the remaining 12 months of his £1million-a-year salary paid up. With chairman Bill Kenwright having been marginalised of late, Moshiri is in control of football matters.
Sammy Lee and Craig Shakespeare, Allardyce’s assistant managers, were also released, along with goalkeeping coach Martyn Margetson. Duncan Ferguson, the club icon who was part of the backroom staff, remains at Goodison for the moment, along with Ryland Morgan, the head of fitness. Allardyce achieved acceptable results and guided Everton to eighth place, having arrived when they were in a horrible predicament. There was, though, not one tear shed when his departure was announced at 9.45am, in a short, cold statement from new chief executive Denise Barrett-Baxendale.
She said: ‘Sam was brought in at a challenging time to provide us with some stability and we are grateful to him for doing that. However, we have made the decision that we will be appointing a new manager this summer. We’d like to place on record our sincere thanks to Sam.’
Allardyce made no attempt to ingratiate himself with Goodison fans, who, among other things, resented the brand of football he favoured. It was critical that Moshiri made the decision to move, regardless of how much Allardyce protested.
‘I’m shocked, disappointed and disgusted that the club didn’t have the decency to tell me, my director of football and my staff about the changes,’ said Allardyce. ‘They must have been in the pipeline for a considerable time but no one thought to tell me and my staff.
‘I came to the club with the team struggling and we finished eighth in the table. I’m more than happy with what myself, my staff and the players have achieved from when I came in.’
It is open to debate what Everton ‘achieved’ during a campaign of unrelenting nothingness in which the depth of discontent was enormous. Everton have lost their identity under Moshiri and the money he has invested — there has been almost £300m in transfer fees — has brought no happiness.
What happens next will define Moshiri’s time as the club’s major shareholder and the first positive step forward was the recruitment of Marcel Brands.
He has signed a three-year deal, worth close to £2million annually, to replace Walsh, whose time as director of football was an expensive calamity. Brands has been on Everton’s radar since the summer of 2016. He turned down an advance then — there were doubts as to whether he could work with Koeman — and was also approached at the end of last year. He is going to become a hugely important figure at the club.
‘They want to change from the typical English model where the control and supervision is with the manager,’ Brands told a press conference in Holland last night. ‘They now want continuity. Over the last few years they have changed (managers) too much; too many players come and go.
‘Now they want a different setup. I am not sure you can solve all the problems they have in one summer but there is a new structure. I am looking forward to the challenge.’