John Textor has poured cold water on reports that he has already identified a replacement manager for Sean Dyche should his proposed takeover of Everton go through this autumn.
The American billionaire announced yesterday in an interview on Sky Sports that he is close to agreeing the sale of his Eagle Football Group’s 45% stake in Crystal Palace, paving the way for him to complete the buy-out of Farhad Moshiri’s controlling position in Everton.
Even before that, however, there were reports that Textor was lining up Abel Ferreira, rival coach at Palmeiras to his Botafogo in Brazil, to replace Dyche who is under pressure early in the 2024-25 season following three successive defeats that left the Toffees bottom of the Premier League table heading into the first international break of the campaign.
Textor dismissed the reports but he did signal that he would challenge Dyche to see if he could manage a different profile of player to what he has typically been used to, especially at former club Burnley, as he leverages the multi-club model and, perhaps, cherry-picks from Botafogo in the future.
“I don’t know [Sean] personally. I watched him at Burnley for so many years do wonders with no budget and a challenge at the squad level, so, obviously, he’s a guy that knows how to in coach in the Premier League,” Textor told Sky’s Alan Myers in a video interview.
“I would sit down with him some day in the future and say, ‘Okay, I’m going to bring you a very different profile of player from any corner of the world. Are you interested? Are you capable? Can you coach this squad? I know you like a big, tough, tall Irish kid like Jake O’Brien, but do you like Igor Jesus, or Luis Henrique or Thiago Almada?’
“Does he have an ambition to coach that profile? Does he have a system that would work a squad which is optimised from the best players in the world? He would have every right to stay there.
“I haven’t even thought about the coaching issue and I’m dealing with lawyers and contracts and PSR things. There’s no fingerprints of mine on this club at this point and there won’t be until I’m the owner. I’ll respect the rule.”