Manage suggests he’d take Everton job, explains Crystal Palace snub

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Lucien Favre has explained why he turned down Crystal Palace, speaking to Corriere del Ticino amid reported interest from Premier League strugglers Everton. 

It’s not often positives can be drawn from a 3-1 home defeat.

But Crystal Palace’s performance in Sunday’s top-flight meeting with an in-form Liverpool side served as something of a yardstick with which to measure their progress under Patrick Vieira. 

Remember, Palace lost the same fixture 7-0 under Roy Hodgson in December 2020.

13 months on, the Londoners look like a different beast entirely; one capable of fighting back, sinking their teeth into one of the Premier League’s most ferocious predators. 

If it wasn’t for some wasteful finishing at one end and a, let’s say, questionable VAR decision at the other, a 3-1 defeat could easily have been a 2-2 draw.

They say the table never lies. But Palace’s current position of 13^th – not to mention a tally of five wins in 22 games – does Vieira something of a disservice. 

Eyebrows were raised when Crystal Palace handed the reigns to the Arsenal legend last summer.

Especially after a deal to bring the more experienced Favre to Selhurst Park collapsed at the eleventh hour.  

Will Lucien Favre take the Everton job after snubbing Crystal Palace?

Six months on, Favre is still out of work.

Vieira, meanwhile, continues to establish himself as a coach of real potential, transforming Crystal Palace from a reactive, two-banks-of-four unit into one of the division’s most forward-thinking sides. 

“Yes that’s right,” says Favre, explaining why he turned down the Palace job shortly before Vieira’s return to London. “The timing wasn’t right.” 

64-year-old Favre is once again being linked with a move to English football. The Athletic claim that he is one of the candidates to take Rafa Benitez’s place in a scalding Everton hotseat. 

Favre was sacked by Borussia Dortmund in late-2020 and is hoping to secure a return to the dugout sooner rather than later. 

“Everything can go very quickly,” says Favre, who has a superb track record when it comes to turning around sinking ships.

“I will definitely go back to coaching. I still feel very fresh and enjoy good health. Now that I have recharged the batteries, I want to work for a few more years.

“I’m ready to get back into the game. But I’ll do it only when I find a project that convinces me 100 per cent and only if I can have people chosen by me by my side. It’s a question of trust.”