Why Everton should sack Sam Allardyce now and bring Marco Silva in

Even in this age of frenzied short-termism, when narrative lines are so compressed that crisis and optimism can flourish in a single week at any Premier League club, Everton’s expectations are shifting with alarming regularity. Within two months of his appointment Sam Allardyce’s side have gone from relegation dog fight to on-par top seven contenders – without actually improving at all.

Big Sam has collected just six points from Everton’s last eight league games to take his average to 1.18 points-per-game since arriving at the beginning of December, almost exactly the same as the 1.2 average the Toffees won prior to his appointment. Nothing has changed, and yet everything has changed. Everton need just three more wins to hit the magic 40 mark and find themselves a mere five points off seventh – the very target set for the club back in August, when a £158 million outlay promised an exciting future on Merseyside. And so it would appear that perceptions have shifted down, and then back up, over the first half of the season despite results staying more or less stable throughout.

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All of which points to a sense of hysteria in the Everton board room, who might just be regretting their panicked decision to bring in a fire-fighter to replace Ronald Koeman. Well, it isn’t too late to right their wrong; taking the ruthless decision to sack Allardyce this week can help Everton get back on track, readying the club for an assault on the top six in 2018/19. After all, the current campaign is already a “write-off”, as Big Sam highlighted after Saturday’s woeful 5-1 defeat to Arsenal.

It was the manner of Everton’s defeat at the Emirates – rather than the score line itself – that confirmed Allardyce is incapable of evolving his tactical philosophy to deliver the progressive aesthetic Toffees fans crave. His 3-4-2-1 formation was a bizarre choice given Arsenal recently switched back to a 4-3-3, and predictably the system left the visitors far too light in central midfield.

It should have been obvious that Henrikh Mkhitaryan’s arrival to play alongside Mesut Ozil meant Arsenal would be even narrower than usual, and yet Big Sam decided to field just two central midfielders. They were predictably cut apart, with a confused back three making matters worse – and suggesting the formation had not been adequately drilled into the players on the training field.

The defeat in north London was proof that sacking Allardyce would not plunge Everton back into crisis (they haven’t exactly embraced his tactics), but that isn’t the main reason why he should go now. Marco Silva, the man Everton were unable to prise from Watford despite reportedly offering £20 million for his services, is now a free agent, meaning Everton can draw a line under this disastrous six months and start afresh without worrying about the financial cost of firing Allardyce.

Silva’s stock remains high despite Watford’s run of eight defeats in 11 league games after the Portuguese’s head had been turned by Everton in late November, and it is understood Farhad Moshiri remains a fan.

Consequently there’s no point waiting until the summer to act when the planets have aligned for a second run at Silva, something the Everton faithful would surely embrace. Allardyce was always an unpopular appointment and the club’s sudden dip in form, culminating with an unacceptable defeat to Arsenal, has only increased the voices of dissent inside Goodison Park.

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With 26 games played, this is the week we begin referring to a club’s fixture list as the “run-in” – and Everton’s is arguably the simplest in the Premier League. They travel to Burnley in early March and host Manchester City and Liverpool shortly after, but aside from this all of the Toffees’ remaining games are against clubs in the bottom half. There is no reason why, with Silva in charge and looking to implement attacking football, Everton cannot build some momentum and finish the campaign as the seventh best club in the country. To do so would eradicate all of the ugliness from August to February, while setting them up to hit the ground running in 2018/19 after six months of Silva’s detailed tactical coaching.

Relieving Allardyce of his duties after eight weeks at the helm would be very cruel. But having bungled the first half of the season this is no time for sentimentality: Marco Silva is ready and waiting. It’s time for Moshiri to act.