Spurs board show Everton the way as they act to change manager

So Tottenham Hotspur have sacked Mauricio Pochettino and immediately replaced him with Jose Mourinho, while Everton who are just one place below Spurs, continue to show faith in their manager Marco Silva.

I didn’t want to go back over this Silva ground yet again but the difference in approach from the two clubs boards’ is instructive and seems to underline the indecision of the Everton hierarchy.

The powers that be at Goodison Park haven’t come out publicly to quell disquiet about Silva, and have made no move to replace him despite the awful start Everton have made to this season.

So the speculation will continue to rumble on, especially if any results go against him, leaving the fans, players and perhaps even Silva himself none the wiser as to the future.

In contrast, Tottenham’s board and Chairman Daniel Levy have acted quickly and decisively to change things as Spurs season threatens to go off the rails and they face the danger of missing out on the holy grail of qualifying for Champions League football.

And of course Mourinho was one of those candidates being bandied about in the speculation of who might replace Silva when that talk was at its height back in October.

Now he’s joined Spurs, which always seemed like a more realistic destination for the ‘special one’ if he returned to club management in England.

Pochettino can consider himself more than a little unlucky, after all he led Tottenham to their first ever Champions League final in dramatic style at the end of last season. And he’s managed to achieve four consecutive top four finishes, positioning Spurs as the leading side in North London.

All this is of course far, far more than Silva has achieved at Everton or anywhere else, although Pochettino has had much longer to build at Spurs.

It’s a gamble by the Spurs hierarchy to get rid of him, but one they appear to have been planning for quite a while showing a degree of foresight and decision-making Everton appear to lack.

There might now be talk of Pochettino being a possible successor if or when Silva is relieved of his duties. For that to happen it would have to be done quickly as I think despite this sacking, he’s bound to have other job offers coming in soon.

I’ve not really considered him as a possible candidate for the Blues job in the past, after all until this campaign he had seemed pretty safe in his post!

However things change very fast in football and there are some parallels in his background at Spurs with the Toffees situation and plenty of merits to the idea, especially as he has a fine track record in English football.

The then unknown Argentinian had done a great job at Southampton making them very competitive before moving to White Hart Lane in 20….

If he came to Goodison Park, he would also be joining a club, that like Spurs, has under-achieved for years, whilst living in the shadow of a more successful neighbour for far too long.

The Toffees are hopefully at the early stages of the same sort of cycle of improvement Tottenham were starting on when Pochettino arrived. The London club were trying to end a culture of mediocrity and failure, spending big on players and planning for an ambitious new ground to host a winning team in the future. Sounds familiar doesn’t it?

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And finally, one of his biggest strengths is his ability to coach and improve young players. He had a great relationship with the young English stars he brought through the ranks at Spurs and into the first team, like Harry Kane, Dele Alli and Harry Winks.

All three have become England players, and Kane in particular, is now one of the best strikers in the world and a player who would command a transfer fee of several hundred million pounds.

Could Pochettino work that magic on young Blues players like Richarlison, Dominic Calvert-Lewin and even Moise Kean?

It’s all speculation on my part of course and there’s absolutely no indication that Everton are thinking along these lines, but such a move might make for an interesting outcome.

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