It seems logical to expect that the football will improve if we can provide Thelwell with a competitive budget (and by that, I mean competing with the likes of Brentford, Bournemouth and Nottingham Forest) to supply Dyche with better players. And indeed we do have little spells of decent football to watch when everyone is fit.
But (and I am often a defender of Dyche) we’re not suddenly going to start playing champagne football with Dyche at the helm. Whilst the defence is generally very well organised (obviously undermined by the injury crisis this season), there are no clear patterns of play around the attack and even set plays are unimaginative. Hence, we score fewer goals than we should do.
So who realistically might take over from Sean Dyche? I’m not talking coaches like Thomas Tuchel here – I’m talking about coaches who would see Everton as a genuinely attractive next step. Having had a little think about this, there are no brilliant candidates out there so far as I can see – many of them are just the current flavour of the month to replace previous flavour of the month types like Graham Potter who ended up flattering to deceive.
I do wonder therefore whether two more seasons of stability under Dyche might be a better bet before we really try to kick on under a new coach. But if we decide to roll the dice, then Kieran McKenna looks the best fit out of the realistically available options.
Marco Silva
Perhaps not so surprisingly, the coach who seems to have earned a step up over the past few years is Marco Silva at Fulham. But I won’t bother singing his praises. The time has gone. As it happens, Man Utd could do much, much worse – if they decide to part company with Ten Hag.
David Moyes
I think everyone probably knows enough about Moyes.
I suspect the football would be well organised and conservative, with spells of decent play if he can sort out our woeful flanks. That will come down to recruitment more than anything – the same thing holding Dyche back.
He’s more of an emergency option than the future. Not for me.
Eddie Howe
He’s done well at Newcastle Utd – but has now been rumbled as a motivator more than a proper coach. Reasonably likely to be sacked, so he may become available.
More or less the same standard as Dyche but seen as more credible due to nice speaking voice and sensible haircut. We’d possibly be more attacking, but less well-organised in defence. He’s a “right place at the right time” sort of a manager and, let’s be honest, we are still miles away from being “the right place” for anyone.
He might be better placed to inherit the best England squad we’ve possibly ever had, than a still crap Everton squad. Not for me.
Thomas Frank
A very good manager – but one who has been given the space and time to develop a style and squad to fit. He also has an excellent relationship with the visionary owner at Brentford.
I think fans who think he’d do well with us are working on the assumption that Brentford (a small club) must have overperformed and we (a big club) must have underperformed. However, that’s not the case.
He’s been given an awful lot more money than Dyche. Brentford have spent more on their squad than we have and – make no mistake – they have a better squad than us. Yet they still finished lower than us (by 8 points) last season.
They are also still heavily reliant on long servers like Pinnock, Henry, Janelt, Norgaard, Jensen, Mbeumo and Wissa who are familiar with his tactics and well-placed to deliver on them. Newer and often expensive signings haven’t really moved them on. That is a bit of a concern.
It would interesting to see what he could do with us – but it seems likely he’d need time, and an even bigger budget than he has been given at Brentford to take us forward.
Kieran McKenna
McKenna is a talented coach and, at 38 years old, probably sees himself as a future Man Utd manager (after a stint in their backroom) – but it’s too big a jump from Ipswich Town. We would be a big step up for him. And a good step up too.
You can see how he’s managed to get Ipswich through the divisions of the Football League but it’s also fair to say that they have stumbled badly in the Premier League. That’s after a big spending summer too – with over £100M spent on essentially a whole new first XI – with Muric, O’Shea, Greaves, Johnson, Ogbene, Cajuste, Phillips, Clarke, Smodzics, Delap, Hutchison coming to the club. Some of these are very good players – certainly capable of stepping into our first XI.
Defensively they’ve looked a mess, with the sort of suicidal tactics Vincent Kompany deployed from goal-kicks and possession in defence for Burnley last season. Indeed, there was talk on the (often mindless) TalkSport that Ipswich might fail to land a win all season. But they’ve also been weirdly impressive at times despite the string of crap results (still without a win).
How would McKenna cope at Everton? It would be a culture shift back to where we were with Roberto Martinez. That failed because, like Silva did a few years later, Martinez lost his nerve and forgot how to defend. That wouldn’t have been so bad if both coaches were supported by bigger budgets and better recruitment but at Everton there was no squad depth to mask the coach’s crisis of confidence and other shortcomings.
So I think McKenna would live or die to some extent again on the sort of quality Thelwell could provide. At the moment, I don’t think he’d be knocked out with the squad he’d inherit – and would need a lot of time and patience (and transfer kitty) to move us on.
I think he’d be a good appointment in time, but we could remain bottom half for a season or two before developing into a much better team. A relegation scare or two along the way too quite possibly.
Regis le Bris
The 48-year-old ex-Lorient coach in France has done really well with Sunderland so far.
They have also been carefully assembling a good group of players too – with the likes of Hume, Cirkin, Neil, Rigg, Roberts, Mundle and Bellingham all looking like they could potentially step up into the Premier League – with Rigg and Bellingham, the two teenage Number 8s, potentially being seriously big talents.
At Lorient, he also brought through a lot of good players – including Moffi (now at Nice), Ouattara (now at Bournemouth), and Lo Fee (now at Roma). This probably comes from him spending the large part of his coaching career with youth set-ups.
The football would definitely be more “front foot” than Dyche but would Le Bris cope at a much, much bigger club? Personally, I doubt it.
Carlos Corberan
41-year-old Spaniard who has got a middling West Brom squad to 4th in the Championship after spells at Huddersfield and Olympiakos. Notably an assistant to Bielsa at Leeds.
His attacking form is driven by goals from Josh Maja (who has knocked about for a while threatening to deceive) and Tom Fellows, the “new Anthony Gordon” who we have come very, very close to signing over the past year or so.
This isn’t exactly stellar stuff from Corberan but he did inherit a mess and has made West Brom much better. The football is not classic Bielsa either (in both good and bad ways). This isn’t a brilliant resume though and I can’t see us really kicking on under him.
Will Still
31-year-old Will Still is the manager of Lens in France after a successful period with Reims. He is English but was born and raised in Belgium.
He did a great job at Reims, especially given his age – turning Arsenal’s Balogun into a striker who actually scores goals. But at Lens he’s done okay without doing anything particularly notable so far. He’s more or less getting them to where they should be in Ligue 1 but not exactly punching above their weight.
If he wasn’t (sort of) English, I don’t think there’d be much of a fanfare about him in England. He needs to deliver more in France before he’s worth a shot.
Eden Terzic
He’ll get mentioned but, after taking Dortmund to a Champions League Final, he might well already be out of our league. Strong rumours that he’s in line to take over at Man Utd.
Ruben Amorim
Top of the table with Sporting Lisbon after 8 wins in 8 this season for the 39-year-old. He’s clearly a really excellent coach and done some hard graft at smaller clubs before getting the gig at Sporting. Will be sought after by Champions League clubs and must have been high on the list for Liverpool before they appointed Arne Slot.
He would be a really good appointment but I suspect he is not realistic. Again, he’ll be in the frame for the Man Utd job when (rather than if?) Ten Hag is sacked.
Dino Topmoller
The 43-year-old has taken Frankfurt to 3rd in the Bundesliga after 4 wins from their opening 6 games. He’s done well.
Worth noting that Frankfurt have had one of the best recruitment and development strategies in the Bundesliga over recent seasons – probably only surpassed by Stuttgart when you take account of budget. Stuttgart have an excellent coach by the way in 42-year-old Sebastien Hoeness but I suspect he’s now already out of our league.
So Topmoller isn’t generating this relative success against the odds – he’s doing it with the benefit of a really well-organised club like Brighton or Brentford in the Premier League. But I’m not convinced he would come to Everton and really do anything.
Frank Schmidt
The 50-year-old trained banker has steered tiny Heidenheim into the Bundesliga all the way from Tier 4 and kept them there. They are currently 9th with 3 wins from 6 this season – and that after losing their best players, Beste and Dincki, over summer.
He’s obviously got a lot about him as a coach to achieve this but he’s also a one-club man, having played for Heidenheim before moving into management. Seems a bit unlikely that he’d up sticks to Everton and replicate success which has taken him 15 years or so at Heidenheim.
Marcel Rapp
Kiel is a tiny club in German football – based on the sticky-out bit that looks like it should be part of Denmark. Rapp is a 45-year-old coach who has spent most of his career in youth coaching, graduating from the very impressive set-up at billionaire-backed village club Hoffenheim.
In a short space of time, he’s taken Kiel from nowhere into the top-flight and is getting results – including a very impressive 2-2 draw against Champions Leverkusen.
They do this through very, very well-structured balance between attack and defence – with fluid formations for different phases of play, aggressive pressing, and direct play when circumstances allow.
However, they are still winless in 6 and 2nd bottom. He’d be a fascinating choice for us – but relatively high risk. Might be a better fit for an ambitious Championship club.