Silva is still in post at Everton…
The morning after that dreadful defeat at Anfield and yet we are still waiting for the board at Everton to act, put an end to this farce and sack Silva.
Letting the situation get this bad and still apparently failing to make a decision is just disgraceful, and as I’ve said before, leaves Everton almost certainly facing relegation this season.
I remember going to the last game of the 1993-94 season against Wimbledon with the Blues starring down the barrel and needing an improbable victory as well as other results to go their way to avoid the drop. They did and the club then repeated that dubious trick four years later! I don’t ever want to have to go through that again but it’s looking more and more likely now.
How in God’s name did things get this bad?
Such decline starts at the top. There are many Evertonians who don’t rate Bill Kenwright and I understand their position. I do think he steadied the ship after the near-disastrous Peter Johnson era, which resulted in the club still flirting with relegation and bankruptcy.
He also brought in David Moyes in 2002 with the Toffees in dire straights again. Moyes wasn’t everyone’s cup of tea but despite his shortcomings he lifted Everton out of the mire of near constant relegation battles and positioned the club in the top half nearly every season.
The Blues even got Champions League and regular European football too. Such lofty achievements seem a million miles away now.
But there was always a degree of sentimentalism and a lack of ambition about Kenwright’s leadership. He also never had the funds to support real investment in the team, which in turn limited who he could attract to manage the club.
Like many Everton supporters I wanted to see an owner with some cash to spend and a vision for the club come in and take over. Maybe it’s a case of be careful what you wish for in case you get it.
Enter Farhad Moshiri. When the Iranian businessman took over in 2016, many Blues fans rejoiced that the club would finally have the resources to compete at last.
At first Moshiri seemed to have plenty of ambition for the club and he has certainly spent lots of money on players under successive managers. In addition he resuscitated plans for a brand new state-of-the-art stadium.
However nearly four years on and I would argue Everton are probably in a worse position than when he took over.
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Millions of pounds have been outlayed on a vast collection of largely underachieving players and the team seems more listless and lacking in pride or identity than ever before. Managers have come and gone with alarming regularity and the latest, Silva, was Moshiri’s own choice. It’s a truly dispiriting situation for our once great club to be in.
Someone has to be accountable and get a grip very soon and for me that man has to be Marcel Brands. The Dutchman was brought in to take control of the club’s football strategy, now is the time for him to step up.
There has been some criticism of his transfer activity, in particular the failure of the club to bring in another quality centre-back before this summer’s window closed. The consequences of that failure was exposed for all to see last night.
However trying to find something positive to cling to in all this wreckage, I still think Brands might be able to improve the situation, if he has the power to do so. For me he alone must make the decision as to who succeeds Silva and he simply has to get that decision right.