Vitor Pereira is not the only manager who saw the Everton job slip through his fingers last month, Frank Lampard signing on the dotted line at Goodison Park.
Lucien Favre might not have been on Everton’s radar quite as long as Pereira – who was first considered all the way back in 2013 when David Moyes left to succeed Sir Alex Ferguson in football’s hottest hotseat.
But the softly-spoken Swiss certainly has a long-term admirer in a certain Mr Moshiri.
“I know that I was on Everton’s shortlist,” Favre admitted, via The Mirror, when asked why he didn’t take over on Gwladys Street in 2016.
Favre may be a patient soul – you don’t get the best out of the mercurial Mario Balotelli without having your fair share of lenience – but even he has his limits. Favre eventually withdrew his name from the Everton frame, having grown tired of what he saw as a lack of urgency on behalf of the Merseyside giants.
Has Moshiri chosen the right manager at last for Everton?
When putting Rafa Benitez out of his misery six years later, it seemed, for a while at least, that Farhad Moshiri would return to a man from Everton’s past to lead a directionless, often rudderless club into a somewhat brighter future.
Martinez was quickly installed as the number one target. But, according to The Athletic, a now-64-year-old tactician who slipped through Moshiri’s fingers during his first few months at Goodison was back on the radar too.
But, this time around, Favre appeared to be little more than a passing interest. Their fingers burned by a pair of 60-something tacticians who failed to live up to their enviable CVs – Carlo Ancelotti did better than his successor but only just – the Toffees took a plunge on Frank Lampard instead.
If the nature of Saturday’s 4-1 thumping of Brentford is anything to go by – the club’s most eye-catching performance in recent memory coinciding with Lampard’s Stanley Park debut – handing the reigns to the former Chelsea boss could be a rare masterstroke in a period of madness.
What next for Lucien Favre?
But what of Favre? The veteran tactician has been out of work since late-2020, when his time at Borussia Dortmund came to an end, but admitted a few weeks ago that he plans to return to the dugout sooner rather than later.
And managerial jobs don’t get much bigger than the one at the Parc des Princes. Accoridng to Le Quotidien, Paris Saint-Germain have identified Favre as the ‘Plan B’ should Zinedine Zidane turn down the chance to succeed the under-fire Mauricio Pochettino in the French capital.
Favre may be more B-list than A-list in coaching terms – more Mads Mikkelsen than Leo Di Caprio – but that does not mean he cannot carry a blockbuster on his shoulders.
During spells at Hertha Berlin, Nice, Monchengladbach and, to a lesser extent, Dortmund, Favre developed a reputation for exciting, free-flowing possession football, elevating underperforming sides to a whole new level.
Frank Lampard arrives at Goodison Park under immediate pressure not only to drag Everton away from the relegation zone but also to get some of the Premier League’s most expectant, most demanding supporters back on side.
That is nothing, however, compared to the crushing pressure Favre will face at PSG.
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