Haunted. Lost. Bewildered. On Wednesday evening at Anfield, Marco Silva’s touchline repertoire encompassed a combination of all three and many more cries of despair as his expensively-assembled Everton side were swept away by the rampaging red tide of league leaders Liverpool. Silva’s fate is surely sealed: a chastising defeat at home to relegation-fodder Norwich City ought to have seen him put out of his misery, but a record defeat to their city rivals – in fairness it could have been an avalanche – will be the final nail in his coffin. And having journeyed fleetingly through two, and soon to be three, top-flight English clubs, perhaps Silva’s time in England is also drawing to a close.
Silva’s standing in the game, certainly in England, has seemed something of a contradiction to his actual achievements. He guided the unfancied Hull City to an FA Cup Final appearance, yet led the Tigers to relegation the same season. His tenure at Watford began brightly before having his head turned by the fluttering eyelashes at Everton and with his mind firmly off-the-ball, left the Hornets facing their own relegation battle. And with almost half-a-billion pounds lavished on the Everton squad at his disposal – with the only notable departures being Romelu Lukaku and John Stones – the Toffees are currently languishing in the bottom three of the Premier League. His nomadic approach to his career in England – three clubs in little more than three years – has denied him an opportunity to demonstrate his ability to truly develop a team in his own image. Nor has he overseen a prolonged period of even moderate success. In total, his resume clutches to just thirty-two league victories over that period from almost a hundred matches.
So is the Portuguese a managerial enigma or mediocre chancer? He arrived in England as a something of a precocious coach; lauded for his impressive achievements in his native Portugal with Estoril and then Sporting Lisbon and announcing himself to the English media with victory over Arsenal while at the helm of Greek giants Olympiakos. His almost obsessive attention to detail and fearless approach to tactical innovation brought parallels with compatriot Jose Mourinho; but his often dour demeanour, his dismissive and uninspiring soundbites and his ‘little boy lost’ appearance sees him perhaps more accurately bracketed with a decided less successful Iberian export, Andre Villas Boas.
Villas-Boas, a one-time protégé of Mourinho, lost his way in England. Drowning under a sea of micro-management, inexplicable tactical systems and incoherent buzzwords lacking any semblance of substance, so Villas-Boas’s star dimmed with staggering speed. Paying a heavy price – though still commanding a sizeable salary – for his failure in England with Chelsea and Spurs, the Portuguese faced relative exile to Russian domestic football and then the perverse oddity of the Chinese Super League for five years before clambering back into European football with Marseille. And so, barring a return to his homeland, so Marco Silva faces a similar route to redemption. For surely his time in the dominant leagues in Europe, for now at least, is over.
And so Silva’s tenure at Goodison Park will come to an end. Eight defeats in his last eleven games, including the drubbing at the hands of Liverpool, has already sealed his fate. Everton’s boardroom have dithered in the inevitable; for in direct contrast to Manchester United’s hasty appointment of Ole Gunnar Solskjaer to allow him to benefit from an extremely favourable run of fixtures, Everton’s upcoming games include Chelsea, Man Utd, high-flying Leicester City and Arsenal. Have Everton effectively hung Silva out to dry, sacrificing these matches in order to grant their next coach a more comfortable honeymoon period? And for Marco Silva? After three years in England it is still fair to say that nobody really knows what his managerial traits are. What is his playing style, his tactical approach, his recruitment criteria? Did Silva believe his own hype? Did he feel compelled to constantly reinvent his systems in order to live up to the myth? Did he tinker and adjust for the cameras rather than for actual merit; a spiral of self-induced carnage that consumed the recently-departed Unai Emery at Arsenal? Like Emery, did Silva even ever know his best-XI?
For Everton, the divisive spectre of former coach David Moyes has reared its head. Supporters seem split on a largely successful tenure that attracted Man Utd to appoint him successor to Sir Alex coupled with a return to a style of football from the dark ages. Bournemouth’s well-regarded Eddie Howe, a boyhood Everton fan, will doubtless be linked as will former Everton icon Mikel Arteta.
But whatever the route forward, a time of consolidation and reflection awaits both club and coach….
The Eye of the Fly 