Big Dunc throws his hat into the ring for Everton job

As the saga continues over who will succeed Carlo Ancelotti, Everton legend Duncan Ferguson has apparently declared his interest in getting the job of manager.

Ferguson has it seems harboured ambititions to become manager of Everton for a while now and now with Ancelotti having suddenly gone he believes now is his chance.

That’s anyway according to the Sun who claim that the Scot turned down a chance to go the Spain with Ancelotti in order to press his claim for the Toffees top job.

Supposedly the Italian wanted Ferguson to carry on with the sort of role he has been doing under him for the past eighteen months but he has turned down the Iberian sun to stay on Merseyside.

Of course the ex-Blues centre-forward had previously been in temporary charge when Marco Silva was sacked in December 2019.

His brief tenure began with a thumping win over Chelsea that brought back memories of the best of his own times as a legendary player and restored some self-confidence and pride in the players and the fans after the awful final few months of Silva’s reign.

Ferguson’s intense passion and determination and the obvious relish he showed in leading his beloved Everton leaping up and down, running down the touchline and hugging random ball-boys, certainly further cemented the strong bond between him and supporters.

He remained unbeaten in his four matches – if you don’t include a penalty shoot-out cup defeat to Leicester City – although the Chelsea performance level wasn’t sustained.

So plenty of positives but still a lot of questions unanswered. And in my own view I don’t think Ferguson is the right man for the job now and these are the reasons.

First of all his lack of experience. Of course experience isn’t everything but I feel he is a little rough around the edges in terms of his football tactics and approach.

I still feel that the Blues need a coach with a more rounded coaching background and a few years cutting his teeth in football management to take on such a big job of re-building as is necessary at Goodison Park.

Secondly, I’m not sure his tactics are right for the team today. Ferguson went back to basics and restored a traditional 4-4-2 formation after all the choping and changing under Silva. It worked and the Toffees were more solid defensively and harder to beat.

In fact it worked so well that Ancelotti stuck with the same formation when he took over in late December and he enjoyed a honeymoon period in the new year. But in the end I think that these tactics are limited and depend on having players who are few and far between in the modern game, in particular traditional wingers.

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Ancelotti also found this a problem as he tried using a variety of players in wide positions with limited success and then changed to a 4-3-3 at the start of last season.

Thirdly is his handling of players. Ferguson has it seems an old fashioned attitude to players as his handling of Moise Kean showed, and while that isn’t necessarily a bad thing, is it the way to manage and motivate footballers today?

Perhaps unfortunately modern multi-millionaire players are much less impressed with the kind of elemental man-management of Everton’s Ferguson and his name-sake the ex-Manchester United manager, than they used to be. They don’t need to be and can always if they’re decent enough find a new club and move on.

Well anyway none of this means that Ferguson would necessarily be a disaster if he took over and who knows perhaps a bit of old-fashioned blood and thunder approach might just get results and give more concrete identity to this Blues team.

But on balance I think he should continue to do this as an assistant to whoever does take over or if not go somewhere else perhaps to a Championship club or Scotland, as Steven Gerrard has, and then return at a later date.

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