Sam Allardyce was simply a symptom of Everton’s problems over the past two years.
Everton made a move today to finally correct the negative problems blighting the club – but it wasn’t sacking Sam Allardyce.
The summer of 2016 saw Steve Walsh leave Leicester City, a club who he had helped become champions, to join Everton as director of football in a move that was far from a good fit.
Walsh had overseen transfer activity at a club that thrived on very defensive football. The Foxes would sit back, soak up an unimaginable amount of pressure, and strike on the counter with brilliantly efficient attacking players.
That is not the football Everton wanted. At all.
Credit where it is due, first of all: Idissa Gueye, Dominic Calvert-Lewin, and Ademola Lookman should all go on to be very good players for Everton and were all signed in that first summer under Walsh.
Also signed, however, were Yannick Bolasie, Ashley Williams, and Morgan Schneiderlin – all players that Everton fans wish they weren’t subjected to.
Similarly, the big money put forward last summer was on players with no actual experience in playing the football Everton wanted. Davy Klassen aside, all of them, no matter how talented, had found success in relegation battles.
And so is it any real surprise that Allardyce was the one to thrive here? Everton employed a man whose success had previously been in recruiting players for a team playing in a negative style and then a negative manager was able to get them functioning.
Sacking Allardyce was necessary but replacing Walsh with PSV’s Marcel Brands is potentially the greater news. It’s time for Everton to move forward.
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