As interim boss Duncan Ferguson continues to prepare Everton for Saturday’s match against Aston Villa another name has emerged again as a potential new long-term manager.
That man is Vitor Pereira who has again been linked with becoming Everton coach after being a candidate who was apprently interviewed just over two years ago before Carlo Ancelotti was appointed.
Pereira left his last club Turkey’s Fenerbache in December and so is available without the complications of paying compensation to another club.
The Portuguese coach has also recently been managing in China where of course Rafa Benitez had been before he became Blues boss last summer.
Linking Pereira again with the Everton job is probably just pure speculation but given the scatter-gun approach of the club to picking new managers, you wouldn’t be surprised if there’s substance to it.
The same article claims that any possbile pursuit of Jose Mourinho is not going to be successful with Roma determined to keep their Portuguese boss.
Pereira’s recent coaching history doesn’t exactly excite and while he seems to be a generally well-regarded coach he would seem another ill-suited to the job at Goodison Park.
The Portuguese has generally tended to use a three-man defence as his basic tactical approach and that would raise interesting questions considering that Benitez used this formation recently and it hasn’t worked well.
But a back-three might work if there was enough cover and support in front of that defence in midfield with a natural left-sided defender like Jarrad Branthwaite as against Chelsea. Anyway, formations and systems are only part of the problem.
I don’t think that this is a serious possibility, and as I’ve said repeatedly there is a troubling lack of focus and clarity behind the club’s recruitment policy when it comes to this situation and indeed in a wider strategic sense of course.
Well anyway, Ferguson is in the hotseat for the moment and let’s hope he can kick-start the season again with a passionate performance and a win against Villa on Saturday.