A look back at where it went wrong for Silva at Everton

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Marco Silva was sacked by Everton earlier this month after just 18 months in charge of the club.

Appointing Marco Silva as Everton’s manager, as interesting as it was, was always a gamble back in the summer of 2018. The 42-year-old wasn’t that great in his previous two jobs at Hull City and Watford with the former going down in his short tenure.

Marcel Brands’ insistence of a young manager with fresh ideas made sense and the club’s recruitment in the summer backed that considering the signings of Moise Kean, Alex Iwobi and Jean-Philippe Gbamin among others. Silva was never fully able to put his ideas for display on a consistent basis which eventually became one of the biggest reasons for his decline.

The recruitment didn’t help him either. Everton’s weaknesses were obvious before the start of the season but the club, as much as they tried, failed to fill the holes. Kurt Zouma was never replaced and as good a signing as Kean was, he was never going to be the one to solve their problems.

Everton’s three out and out strikers are Kean, Cenk Tosun and Dominic Calvert-Lewin. The Italian is in his first season in the Premier League which is never easy for anyone, let alone a teenager. Calvert-Lewin, as loved as he is by the fans, isn’t someone who will guide a club to one of the European places.

Tosun, on the other hand, has turned out to be one of Everton’s worst signings ever despite his all-important equaliser against Spurs last month. Putting things into perspective, Silva really had no strikers to work with and that combined with their shaky defence gave him no real chance to succeed.

The board needs to take a long, hard look at themselves with respect to their managerial appointments since David Moyes’ departure. The Toffees are now looking for a fifth permanent manager in six years which shows no stability whatsoever and considering their last four appointments, can fans really trust the board to get it right this time?

The win percentage of Everton’s last five managers – Moyes, Roberto Martinez, Ronald Koeman, Sam Allardyce and Silva are all between 35.9 to 40.5. (BBC) The theme has been the same since Moyes left the club back in 2013 and as much as sacking Silva seemed necessary at the point, it might not change a lot going forward.