Everton left embarrassed after small club managers say no

“Why would I leave Watford to go to Everton?”

This is what Marco Silva essentially had to say after being asked about the Everton job. Watford are historically irrelevant, Everton are spending at historic levels and the coach at Watford sees no reason why he should leave that job to come here.

Sean Dyche at least had the kindness to say that he was flattered, but the fact is, both of these men are completely justified in staying exactly where they are. No reason to cause bad blood with their current employers midseason so that they can take over a team way behind them in the table.

This is what Ronald Koeman reduced Everton to - poking around, asking minuscule clubs if we can pretty please have a sit down with their managers, only for said managers to be like:

I’ve seen a lot of Koeman defense in the last few days, even after Everton looked as coherent against Chelsea yesterday as they have all season. Just do me a favor, when you feel that burning anger that comes from being spurned by coaches at clubs half our size, please direct that anger at the stubborn boneheaded manager who got us into this situation in the first place.

As long as Farhad Moshiri stays the course with his support and Steve Walsh can continue to recruit the brilliant young footballers he has, this club will be fine in the long term.

In the short term, Everton’s footballing lives are far more difficult than they should be, and if we thought we were going to gain a respite from that via a Premier League rival’s manager, it looks like those hopes were misplaced.