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Brands confident Everton can find success

Marcel Brands says that with an emphasis on patient structuring and teamwork, Everton will be able to build success despite the challenging Premier League landscape.

The Blues' impressive new Director of Football sat down with Paul Joyce of The Times and spoke of the ethos that has under-pinned his achievements at AZ Alkmaar and PSV Eindhoven in his native Netherlands.

It's an approach that is already evident at Finch Farm at Goodison Park where he has moved quickly to begin the process of addressing a shambolic and expensive recruitment policy under his predecessor, Steve Walsh, and then head coach, Ronald Koeman.

A bloated and imbalanced squad was pruned over the summer by Brands and new manager, Marco Silva, with some late additions on transfer deadline day rounding off what was a hugely successful transfer window.

As just the beginning of Brands's plans for Everton, it has generated much excitement in supporters, many of whom feel that the charismatic Dutchman could end up being the best signing the club made this year.

As Joyce explains, it was Brands's perceptive changes at team level and his personal engagement with Alkmaar's players that was one of the chief catalysts behind a stunning rise in the hitherto unfashionable Eredivisie team's fortunes a decade ago. He convinced Louis van Gaal to stay on as AZ's manager and the club embarked on a memorable title charge.

Replicating that success in the Premier League would appear to be an impossible task given the well-documented and increasing disparity between the so-called "big six" and the rest in England's top flight.

Brands and Silva have begun the process of trying to break that developing stranglehold on the top positions and domestic honours and he is convinced it can be done.

“If you look money-wise, then it looks an impossible job” Brands says, “but if you don't believe that you can achieve things because they look difficult, then you should not work in sport. Because in sport you can do a lot with teamwork.

“I always think the best players will never be champions. The best team will be champions. Manchester City has great players but they have a fantastic coach who makes a fantastic team. It is not only about good players because, if you look at the top five, top six then they all have good players.

“If we can do our job in the right way, then I am convinced we can be successful.”

Everton's summer transfer business began with offloading a good deal of the dead weight left over from Koeman's reign, with some players sold and others shipped out on loan.

The combination of that necessity, the need for the new management duo to assess their new charges and the World Cup meant that the recruitment of new talent came late in the window but it has proved hugely successful thus far, with Bernard, André Gomes and Kurt Zouma demonstrable successes in addition to Richarlison and Lucas Digne who arrived earlier in the process. Yerry Mina, the sixth acquisition, is expected to finally make his first start for the Blues this weekend.

“I always say I prefer to have the right player a day later than the wrong player a day earlier," Brands says., "but I want to do it perfect and it was not perfect yet. That is a goal you must have.

“You see now the team is growing and you see the work of Marco. He is a modern coach, he works hard every day. The players see, and feel, there is improvement and that is always the best motivation.

“The last two years were a little bit unstable. It is important to get more stability and then you can change some structures, bring in some ideas and build something. If you want to take care of the youth academy, for example, it takes time. That is not a result you get next week. I am very happy but I always say that when the people in the club are proud, I did my job well.”

 

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