Everton boss Marco Silva is coming in for a lot of criticism right now.
Sam Allardyce has told The Alan Brazil Sports Breakfast on talkSPORT (broadcast on 5/2 from 7:28am) that Everton are paying the price for not signing a replacement for Romelu Lukaku, and insisted that their mistakes in the transfer market have harmed Marco Silva’s chances of implementing his long-term vision at Goodison Park.
Silva seems to be coming under a lot of pressure right now. The Toffees have lost three of their last four games, and they have only won three times in the league since the end of November.
They are now five points adrift of seventh-place Wolves after losing to the newly-promoted side at the weekend. And when asked about the problems at Goodison Park, Allardyce seemed to suggest that recruitment mistakes in recent times are holding the managers back, and will continue to do so.
“It could have been a lot quicker had the money that they’ve spent already been spent more wisely,” he told talkSPORT when asked about implementing a long-term plan at Everton.
“There’s still one area that’s never been addressed and that’s the replacement of Romelu Lukaku. They took 24 goals out of that team. My short period saw Wayne Rooney score 11 goals, three or four of them were penalties. Everyone was saying it was my negative football. Well, really, it wasn’t actually my negative football.
“We created the chances, but most of the time, we couldn’t even hit the target, and in the end, it became a situation where you know you’re very rarely going to score more than one goal so you had to make sure that that goal would get you the three points.”
Silva’s chances of turning the situation around will not be helped by the coming fixtures. Their next five home games see them face Manchester City, Liverpool, Chelsea, Arsenal and Manchester United.
And with plenty of fans already expressing their discontent, it would arguably be a very brave move from Silva to suggest that his focus is now going to be on putting the foundations in place that will hopefully boost their chances of long-term success.
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