Season › 2017-18 › News
Unsworth turns down Oxford opportunity

Having guided the U23s to the Premier League 2 title last season and gained Premier League experience with a six-week stint overseeing first-team affairs in the autumn, the 44-year-old had been selected by the League One club as their chosen successor to Pep Clotet whom they recently dismissed following a poor run of form.
Following talks with the Oxford hierarchy, however, Unsworth has, according to the Liverpool Echo, informed them of his decision not to take the position.
Reader Comments (52)
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2 Posted 07/02/2018 at 16:23:59
If things go really south this season, Moshiri may be forced to eat humble pie and call on Unsy to rescue him. God forbid that such a situation should arise!
3 Posted 07/02/2018 at 16:24:51
Settled and comfortable with the U23s and a great job he is doing. Needs experience though if he has hopes of getting the Everton job three or so years down the line.
4 Posted 07/02/2018 at 16:29:41
5 Posted 07/02/2018 at 16:34:43
6 Posted 07/02/2018 at 16:35:38
He may be ambitious but is set on staying in the North. Nothing wrong with that.
7 Posted 07/02/2018 at 16:37:45
8 Posted 07/02/2018 at 16:47:26
9 Posted 07/02/2018 at 17:20:21
10 Posted 07/02/2018 at 17:23:39
Regardless, needs to show some ambition and get out there. The example he sets to his young charges is to stay put?
11 Posted 07/02/2018 at 17:42:45
If they're any good John let's hope they do stay put.,"The example he sets to his young charges is to stay put?"
If they're any good John let's hope they do stay put.,,,1,17:29:16,,124.195.201.21,ok,697,02/07/2018 17:29:16,selyme,reader,, 898088,36232,toffeeweb,07/02/2018,Ian Bennett,benno53mayfair@hotmail.co.uk,No pace and too light-weight for the Premier League I think. The game is just too quick for him.,No pace and too light weight for the premier league I think. The game is just too quick for him.,,michael.kenrick@gmail.com,1,17:35:12,,148.252.128.131,ok,5429,02/07/2018 17:35:12,ianbwarrington,reader,, 898089,36233,toffeeweb,07/02/2018,Darren Hind,dashin@cheerful.com,FEAR??? Ha Ha!
The guy was asked to step in to sort out a motorway pile-up in the fast lane and he didn't blink.
Maybe he is looking at the number of fans who have turned against the fat fella and expects to be asked to step in for a third time.
Maybe he has already had the nod... The management now know he is better than Sam and I don't see them splashing out a fourth time... but you never know with this crew.
The guy was asked to step in to sort out a motorway pile up in the fast lane and he didn't blink .
Maybe he is looking at the number of fans who have turned against the fat fella and expects to be asked to step in for a third time.
Maybe he has already had the nod . . .The management now know he is better than Sam and I don't see them splashing out a fourth time . .but you never know with this crew
,,michael.kenrick@gmail.com,1,17:42:37,,90.205.226.238,ok,13643,02/07/2018 17:42:37,lauriblue,reader,,
898090,36224,toffeeweb,07/02/2018,Kevin Tully,ktully@tulwayengineering.co.uk,"Chuckling at you last line there, David. Uttered those words many a time when leaving before the boos rang out. The trouble is though, we are all "Everton crack addicts" mate. We just can't give them up!
12 Posted 07/02/2018 at 17:45:29
We now know, if he had got the Manager, s job, he would have done better than Allardyce. He is tactically better, would have brought young players on, and was able to get more out of Rooney and probably some others had he been supported and given time.
Get more coaching badges, Unsy your time will come. The fraud we have got is a dead man walking. Moshiri can't be that stupid and if he is (the mucking about he did when you where trying to Manage would suggest a problem), Usmanov isn't.
Sincere Good Luck in the future.
13 Posted 07/02/2018 at 17:58:50
The club needs level-headed people who can nurture and promote the obvious talents in the U23 set-up and (in some cases) needlessly out on loan. In this case, the best way to show ambition may well be to stay put.
14 Posted 07/02/2018 at 18:08:04
I think had it been a Northern club where he would not have to uproot his family he would have taken it.
15 Posted 07/02/2018 at 18:10:16
He has been doing a great job at Everton so why should he not carry on???
16 Posted 07/02/2018 at 18:20:06
Please explain this John. Beyond me but not the brightest.
17 Posted 07/02/2018 at 18:20:18
I still do expect him to take a manager's job somewhere else this summer... the next step in preparation for returning to our touchline in the future.
18 Posted 07/02/2018 at 18:31:41
19 Posted 07/02/2018 at 18:39:27
20 Posted 07/02/2018 at 18:50:04
Will never happen, but I'd be happier for it.
21 Posted 07/02/2018 at 18:59:39
Fear? No chance. He won't be given the job this time around though. Hopefully he will down the line.
22 Posted 07/02/2018 at 19:03:51
By staying put he shows little to no ambition. That is not an example to set. The opportunity in the real rough and tumble of league football is there, he should take it.
As a academy player I might think its more comfortable to stay put. You have to put yourself first.
For the majority of players at that level that will be it, staying put is rarely the answer.
23 Posted 07/02/2018 at 19:05:24
24 Posted 07/02/2018 at 19:07:35
25 Posted 07/02/2018 at 19:12:05
By staying put he shows little to no ambition. That is not an example to set.
How do you English say...? Bollocks!!
Maybe it shows loyalty and the kind of example this Club desperately needs currently with all their outsourced hired guns on the payroll?
26 Posted 07/02/2018 at 19:23:18
27 Posted 07/02/2018 at 19:24:17
I think you present a vision that is so depressing. But of course you can reply with "way it is"
28 Posted 07/02/2018 at 20:15:53
Not sure if he still has ambitions to manage Everton but would prefer him to get a bit of experience first as it's a very big step up and to attract the right players he would need the right credentials and success.
29 Posted 07/02/2018 at 20:38:31
I want him to succeed but I feel he needs to leave Everton, and then comeback another day if the times right.
30 Posted 07/02/2018 at 20:38:37
There are clearly a number of young players at the club who have potential and this is the one good thing on an otherwise bleak horizon. They and we will have a better chance of success if David remains with the club.
31 Posted 07/02/2018 at 20:48:05
Anyway, I agree with those who say the why is his business. I'd certainly rather he was at Everton, preferably in charge of the senior team given the shockingly shite job the current person is doing.
Having said that, the idea of him going off and proving himself elsewhere and getting serious lower league management experience appealed to me. Provided he then comes back and leads us to glory in the new stadium of course.
33 Posted 07/02/2018 at 22:34:00
34 Posted 07/02/2018 at 23:23:40
Hopefully we get a manager with a wealth if experience who wants to build a legacy... hopefully the need his experience as to who's ready to move up, who should be shipped off (from both squads)... because we sure as He'll don't need anymore of either Koeman's island or Alladyce's arrogance style management.
I would, as I keep stating, rather see whomever is next in line come in ASAP so they can fully assess what's needed rather than wait until summer.
35 Posted 07/02/2018 at 23:38:28
36 Posted 08/02/2018 at 00:14:15
37 Posted 08/02/2018 at 00:26:51
He will never stray far from the tree so I was quite ambivalent about this potential move; he stays and we benefit from his excellent coaching. He goes and he prepares himself for the day he comes home as king.
38 Posted 08/02/2018 at 01:27:16
It's true that managers need to start in the lower leagues before given an opportunity in the top flight Barcelona managers excepted but they also need to be very careful when deciding on their first full time job.
Make the wrong decision early on and it could mean a very short career just look at Roy Keane.
39 Posted 08/02/2018 at 01:47:40
Over the last few years, there seems to be the mentality that if you were a Premier League player, then you should automatically get a big job. The awfully named 'Class of 92' goons, Sol Campbell, Craig Bellamy and others seem to expect that big jobs will fall in their laps, even though they have zero managerial experience. A lot of these former pros don't even have any real coaching experience, other than taking their coaching badges.
I have full respect for ex-players (even if I didn't like them as players) like Harry Kewell, Kevin Nolan and Jimmy-Floyd Hasslebaink who are learning their trade in the lower leagues. By cutting their teeth in this environment, can give a huge amount experience to fledgeling managers.
While Unsworth manages the team's youth, it doesn't give him the real day-to-day experience an actual first team manager would.
40 Posted 08/02/2018 at 02:28:19
42 Posted 08/02/2018 at 02:55:17
Do we believe what we read in the media? Whether its yes or no, sometimes the media is right and not wrong.
I really have no clue what it is to drive Allardyce to play Schneiderlin and Gueye together every week. But there must be some logic that makes sense to him. It could be conspiratorial or just the way he sees things.
I think we accept Walcott is a pretty good player; been around for a long while and seems an articulate and intelligent sort of bloke. Is his recent statement he joined Everton because of Allardyce true? If so there may be some really strange and inconsistent things happening in the dressing room that we simply don't have a clue about.
What is clear though, judging by the facts that emerge, is the transfer policy totally sucks, the EitC is brilliant, the playing strategy is not successful, the youth policy and management of same has been excellent (hope it remains so) and the owners / investors are seeming to / are spending money and will likely return a massive profit (thanks to Sky) so all in all, Allardyce isn't the only cog in the machine; The only thing I do know so far at Everton he has shown the ability to shore up a crap defense and dismantle one as well.
He is emerging as a crap man-manager if you judge the Lookman and Vlasic scenarios and it would not surprise me to see Unsy reprise the role he did last season, but perhaps a bit sooner.
43 Posted 08/02/2018 at 07:44:32
Not convinced there's any fear involved here.
44 Posted 08/02/2018 at 10:24:44
I think he has made the right decision. Stay put or go to a Championship club with half a chance.
45 Posted 08/02/2018 at 11:46:58
[BRZ]
46 Posted 08/02/2018 at 12:02:19
Many of us genuinely wanted him to make a success of it when he took over from Koeman. It didn't pan out like that.
At his very first interview on taking over, he declared himself as 'ready' for the 1st team manager's job and that he wanted it full-time.
If that is truly his ambition and David is a very honest man then he cannot continue his coaching career as 'merely' the manager of Everton's U-23s if he is to realise that ambition.
At some point, he has to make the leap of faith and take up the post of first team manager somewhere.
Oxford wasn't it, for whatever reason. I hope if and when the right offer comes along for David, he will seize it and make a success of it.
And who knows? if he is successful in the lower leagues, he may one day be a prime candidate to take up the Everton manager's job full-time.
49 Posted 08/02/2018 at 12:34:09
"Fear," "no ambition," "Bad example." By finding a negative motive for Unsworth in this unknowable situation, those ToffeeWebbers are telling us more about themselves than Unsworth.
50 Posted 08/02/2018 at 22:58:56
I don't really care why he turned the job down, and nobody here knows it, for sure. It was his decision and he's the one who knows best what he wants from life and football.
But I wish this Messiah cult about David Unsworth would go away. The man is already into his mid-40s, a bit late to start a managerial career, I'd say. And he's doing very well at his current job.
51 Posted 08/02/2018 at 23:50:35
If his missus is as homesick as reported by the possibility of even visiting the likes of Birkenhead I'd be doing what he's doing; flagging to the board/Kenwright the interest in him of other parties in order to prise out of them/him an even more lucrative contract next time around.
Loads of Everton employees/players "get" Everton on that basis, hence the problems we have.
52 Posted 09/02/2018 at 00:28:51
53 Posted 09/02/2018 at 02:40:45
54 Posted 09/02/2018 at 03:29:38
And I think Oxford approached Unsworth anyway?
55 Posted 14/02/2018 at 07:04:07
The only people who use the phrase "gets" Everton are those who think it's a good way to dismiss promoting from within.
Its exceptionally foolish logic. However if you CAN point to a post where somebody has suggested Unsworth should get the post because he "gets" Everton. I will of course retract that statement – Good luck
Your claim that he is "up Kenwright's arse" is another despicable and cringeworthy slur from you against Evertonians wanting to progress through the club.
It may have escaped your notice that Most people are in daily contact with their line managers.
"By his own admission" .... My arse
As I say; Good luck with the "he should get it because he 'gets Everton'" lark. It's always difficult to prove a point you and other critics have simply made up.
56 Posted 14/02/2018 at 08:47:28
I disagree with Darren about him getting the Everton job again in the near future, but only because I'm trying to get one over on the man who usually calls it right, when it comes to discussing the boss!
Why did he go for the interview? Probably because it's his way of telling clubs, that he's available if the right job comes along.
Maybe Oxford is too far, because Stubbs was doing a very good job at Hibs, but probably went to Rotherham, because it was closer to home, even though it turned out to be a disastrous move for him, with regards to it being the wrong club.
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1 Posted 07/02/2018 at 16:23:27