We were dreading it but it seems that Farhad Moshiri is going to take another huge punt on the next Everton manager as it appears increasingly likely he will appoint Vitor Pereira to the job.
I really don’t know what to say about this latest news. Everton are apparently considering bringing in a coach with a CV limited mainly to smaller European leagues and zero experience not just of the Premier League but of English football, period.
And this with the team in tailspin and staring at a relegation battle for the remainder of the season. A battle which this squad seems particularly ill-equipped to cope with successfully.
Pereira has a past managerial record that includes stints in his native Portugal, Greece and most recently Turkey.
No disrespect to those respective countries or their leagues, but none of them are in the top tier of European football.
And, when one national newspaper claims he is a ‘serial winner’ it should obviously be pointed out that winning titles with the traditionally dominant sides in those leagues is not an earth-shattering achievement.
You have to ask what exactly goes on in the owners’ head when it comes to making decisions? I just don’t understand as much as I try to, what the thinking behind all this seemingly scattergun approach is?
There appears to be no clear strategic logic behind this decision, at least that I can see, and it is also pretty obvious that the baleful hand of Kia Joorabchian is very much in play.
We don’t need this man to be sitting behind Moshiri whispering in his ear and distorting further the already ramshackle decision-making process at Goodison Park.
All the previous managerial appointments under Moshiri have been individuals who have had at least some English football and Premier League experience.
So, Pereira just makes no obvious sense at all. If he was a proven coach at turning around desperate situations then maybe so, but he’s not.
As we report today, one of the other favourites for the job was Frank Lampard who of course has some Premier League experience, but he has now been apparently ruled out.
I personally don’t think that having that direct experience is necessarily essential, if you are prepared to take a reasonable risk on a promising coach like Wayne Rooney or Steve Cooper, but it’s been a gold standard for the owner himself in the past.
And. if you are going to go for someone outside the circuit of English football then a better bet would be someone like the vastly experienced Lucien Favre.
Now, with the Blues teetering on the brink of possible relegation in basically the worst form that I can ever remember, he is about to appoint a coach with nothing that indicates he is equipped to salvage the situation.
Pereira’s last job was in Turkey and he was fired from his post as Fernerbache’s form declined leaving him out of work since last month. Not exactly a strong recent background is it?
I argued a few days ago that perhaps given the situation Everton are in it might make sense to consider turning again to Sam Allardyce to prevent relegation.
He would be a short-term solution until the end of the season giving time for this club to try and get it’s house in order, find a football director, if that’s what they want to do, and identify the right manager long-term.
According to some reports the 53-year-old Pereira will only get the job for the rest of the season and his future will depend on results with clauses inserted in the contract if the team is relegated.
But, if you’re only going to give the job to someone until the end of the season and then assess his performance based on those results, why not bring in a man who has done that successfully many times before (Allardyce) or simply leave Duncan Ferguson in post and back him in the transfer market?
Instead, Moshiri seems determined again to go against others on the board, much of the fanbase and his own recent criteria to bring Pereira in.
He did this last summer when deciding to give the job to Rafa Benitez. That blew up in his face and has left the Blues in their presently precarious position.
Part of the problem here is the consequence of that decision. As results nosedived, Moshiri failed to pull the trigger on Benitez last month when he should have.
In my view he should have acted to arrest the decline in form in early December, give the club much more of a chance to find a replacement and for that individual to have enough time to look at the squad and then move in the transer window to strengthen it.
He didn’t do that and instead left Benitez in post even though he seemed a dead duck for the next month or so. Now, he’s having to scramble around for a new permanent boss with time rapidly running out in the transfer window and the Toffees desperately in need of new players.
I very much doubt Pereira is a sound appointment and I don’t think it will work. Everton are in very real danger of going down unless they get this decision right. Is Moshiri aware of that? Sometimes it really seems as though he’s not.
At this stage I fear this football club might be entering a long-term decline, which it is almost impossible to escape from. Frankly the sooner the owner sells up and moves on the better.