Brands and Silva changing culture at Everton

All the indications are that Everton are very close to securing the permanent signing of Andre Gomes. So what does this deal say about the changing culture and ambition at Goodison Park?

The football mind-set at Everton is changing and with Gomes almost secured, I feel the Blues should move quickly to build on this momentum.

Last summer of course the Toffees ended up doing the majority of their business on transfer deadline day, which was far from ideal.

Everton did come up with some excellent signings such as Lucas Digne, the player of the year, as well as Kurt Zouma and Gomes himself of course, with these last two secured on deadline day itself.

However this is not an ideal situation. Last summer Everton re-vamped their set-up yet again with Marcel Brands coming in to take over as Director of Football alongside another new first-team manager, Marco Silva, both of whom were appointed at the beginning of July.

This new team was untried together and so it was hard for the club to do much substantial recruitment planning before the window closed.

However this summer things are different. The Blues have been linked early on with several young starlets from South America and players playing their trade in Brands’ native Holland too. Although work permit issues are perhaps the biggest obstacle to this strategy.

This fits in with the Dutchman’s past track record of finding and developing often very young talent from South America, some of whom might also be slightly under the radar of other clubs.

And Brands seems to have established very strong relationships with several top clubs in continental Europe, especially Barcelona of course.

This is great news for the Blues. It’s critical to have the knowledge of players and persuasive skills to be able to prise away under-used talent that these big clubs have often accumulated and allowed to sit in their reserves.

And here Silva comes in. It seems one of his main strengths is his ability to persuade these players that swapping the obvious allure of Spain and a place like the Camp Nou for an often cold, wet and windy Merseyside is worth it.

Silva has the advantage in the case of Portuguese and Brazilian players in that he shares their culture and language but he seems to be very adept at winning over a lot of talented foreign players. So while I don’t think he’s the most innovative tactically, his man-management skills seem to be first-rate.

And that seems to be proving critical in securing these players signatures. Look at Lucas Digne. An outstanding full-back, the best in the Premier League, who has slipped under the radar of several other clubs before Everton got him.

This change is important because let’s be honest the Toffees are not exactly one of Europe’s glamour clubs anymore!

A quarter of a century without a trophy and over thirty years since a league title, have left the club out in the cold.

Not competing regularly in the Champions League is also a major problem. For all its at times overdone hype, it’s the most glamorous competition in Europe and the window through which the world tends to view European clubs.

It’s also of course a given that the majority of ‘top’ players demand to be playing in the competition. So the Toffees absence from it is a major problem.

Traditionally the Blues have also been a club with a strong heritage of bringing through talent from the British Isles and northern Europe and a playing style that was cultured but robust too.

In the club’s most competitive era in the Premier League, under David Moyes, that was exactly the approach Everton employed. Briefly the Toffees first overseas coach Roberto Martinez tried to alter it, unsuccessfully.

But this more stereotypically British style and culture seemed to reach its nadir during the ill-fated Sam Allardyce era, although his very basic, defensive and simple long-ball tactics were not in the club’s historic tradition.

Given the success of the Barcelona-inspired revolution at Manchester City and the increasing influence of Spanish, Portuguese and South American coaches and players, it did seem as though a fundamental change in approach was needed by the Toffees.

Everton appear to be embracing the ‘Latin-style’ football culture and this is reflected in the increasing number of players from those countries as well as in Silva himself.

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And so this returns us to the beginning and the question can Everton secure their targets quickly and at a competitive price.

The Gomes deal is a good sign. Not just because he’s very much the type of player we’re talking about, but also because the Brands and Silva seem to have done a very good job both persuading him to commit to the Blues and knocking down Barcelona’s asking price.

Lets hope this is the approach they can employ all summer and that the two of them can get deals done as soon as possible so that new players bed in and help build on last season’s momentum.