The future of Marco Silva

The future of Marco Silva hangs in the balance, but irresponsibility runs through the club.

When the final whistle went yesterday against Burnley, it felt like a collective ‘this again’ was felt by absolutely everyone. This was supposed to be different. Marco Silva with the guidance of Brands was supposed to be different from what went before, but truth be told, they all look the same.

You can probably name the date it started to take a downward trajectory for Marco Silva, Deadline Day. When it was announced that there would be no replacement for Kurt Zouma, that there would be no Wilfried Zaha and Abdoulaye Doucoure would not be joining the club, any offerings to change style from Marco Silva were so to speak dead and buried for we already seen in the twelve months previous to that his opinions on some of the fringe players in the squad. So therefore, Marco Silva has felt like he has had to go with the same old formation with many of the same old players.

For sure, Silva has been wrong to do so but he is not alone in recklessness. Marcel Brands is heralded as a man who gets the job done and does not leave any sense of doubt going into a season in terms of playing squad. Well that is not the case. Marco Silva has been left short in terms of playing squad and even Brands’ staunchest fan cannot state otherwise. The general consensus is that it was only in defence that we were left short but I find it hard to see how not having another central defender alone is the cause of all our problems. 

In midfield we are slightly lacking, with Idrissa Gueye leaving the club, you do not have to be a world renowned director of football to workout that to replace someone of the quality of Gana them you are going to need many options, horses for courses if you like. We did manage to bring in Gbamin as a direct replacement but the only other ‘new’ midfielder we brought in was Fabian Delph, both good midfielders in their own right but it was not enough to replace someone of Gana’s quality. That’s why he wanted Doucoure, even Lemina was linked. They did not come. If you are serious about breaking the top six, you have to pay the fee and accept that it is taking you in the right direction, as opposed to accepting a substandard window for the ‘net spend’ bragging rights.

But the crème de la crème is the lack of defender. It was mooted in May that it would be difficult to bring in Kurt Zouma, so why are scrambling around on the last day for run of the mill, nondescript players like Chris Smalling and Marcos Rojo. Individually, Michael Keane and Yerry Mina are good defenders, collectively they are hit and miss, we have not kept a league clean sheet since the victory against a hapless Watford side, and apart from Manchester City, you cannot say we have played anyone of note. 

Then there is the manager. Realistically in the short to medium term he will lose his job, not because of recruitment blunders solely but because he just not very good at winning games at football consistently. It does not take a Pep Guardiola to win games in the Premier League. Currently, Roy Hodgson and Sean Dyche are 4^th and 5^th in the Premier League. It is widely accepted that they are both not ‘elite managers’ but they are very good at what they do and everything that they do has a logical plan to it. Marco Silva genuinely baffles me. Nothing he does ever seems to make much sense, especially having watched his Hull and Watford teams. They played with exuberance and whilst naïve defensively they had a clear identity and a style to them. Marco Silva’s Everton does not have that. They are boring, predictable and scared.

Whether Silva will lose his job remains to be seen. Presumably the board are reluctant to because of the lack of any top manager around, and that is probably my position also. Either way, a big couple of weeks await the club and for this season anyway, the reaction against West Ham is make or break for the season coming up.