Marcel Brands has officially left Everton, and the inquest into what went wrong for Farhad Moshiri’s second director of football is underway.
While for some the issue is cut and dry, as everything has to be these days, it has quickly become clear that the blame for Everton’s failings does not solely rest on the Dutchman’s shoulders.
Instead, it’s apparent that he was working for a club at odds with itself, where the owner, several managers and director of football were all pulling in very different directions.
That became an even more distinct problem when Moshiri hired Rafa Benitez in the summer, an appointment Brands had no say on and did not approve of. That led to a difficult summer in which Benitez seemingly led transfer dealings and built a relationship with Moshiri, leaving Brands further sidelined.
It became inevitable then that when a scapegoat was needed, and Moshiri publicly backed his manager, Brands was it.
His departure has left many unanswered questions in its wake, but rather than the focus being on the transfers he did do, Brands time is being assessed on the ones he never.
Anyone watching Everton for the last two years has known that the club need to replace Seamus Coleman. Yet, despite several transfer windows passing by, no replacement has arrived for him during Brands’ time in charge of recruitment.
To suggest efforts have not been made to find one would be misleading, though. There has been an extensive list of right-backs linked with Everton in recent years, with the likes of Zeki Celik, Santiago Arias, Max Aarons and even Jorge Sanchez all named as potential targets.
None were linked more consistently than Denzel Dumfries. Long before his exploits with the Netherlands at the Euros this summer, Everton were in the picture for the PSV Eindhoven man.
Indeed, by all accounts, Everton had made their move before the summer tournament, and a deal was there to be wrapped up for the bargain price of €15m.
In fact, by June 11th Everton remained ‘in pole’ position as far as the Italian media were concerned. That’s two days before the Netherlands had kicked a ball at the Euros. Somehow, though, that never happened, and Dumfries ended up at Inter Milan.
One argument is that he had simply taken the better option, using his performances for his country at the Euros and Achraf Hakimi’s move to PSG to get himself a better move.
That certainly played a part, but there is also no denying a deal could have been achieved. The issue was that Everton, limited by Financial Fair Play, couldn’t reach an agreement with PSV Eindhoven. That was because they didn’t have the money to do so.
As a result, they spent weeks trying to convince the Dutch side to accept a loan deal, time which could have been spent persuading the player and his agent, Mino Raiola, on the move.
It’s something Brands would have been confident of doing as he enjoys a strong relationship with the renowned super-agent.
Everton never had the money, but that was a direct result of the frivolous spending before him than anything done under his leadership. Had the money been there, Brands had the player lined up and a major criticism of his reign would not exist.
That issue was a direct clash between Brands and his owner. The failure to sign Matheus Nunes this summer demonstrated one between the Dutchman and Benitez.
Throughout this summer, it was clear a deal for Nunes was in place, with reports in Portugal echoing their counterparts from the Netherlands on Dumfries. For all intents and purposes, Nunes was on his way to Goodison Park.
A steady slew of rumours demonstrated that talks were progressing bit by bit, so much so that by the 17th June a deal was ‘imminent’. Two days later it was ‘practically certain’.
Images suggesting he was at the Titanic Hotel in Liverpool have never been verified but demonstrated the mood at the time. Nunes was going to be an Everton player.
Yet, like Dumfries, it never happened. Instead, the deal stalled, then collapsed entirely, with it made clear that it was Benitez who rejected it.
Several reports in Portugal insisted it was the Spaniard who didn’t want Nunes, preferring to focus his efforts on ‘other priorities’.
That decision came back to haunt him when injuries to Tom Davies and Abdoulaye Doucoure, coupled with continued issues for Fabian Delph and Andre Gomes, meant Everton were left short of central midfield options.
It’s been a huge issue for Benitez, but one that could have been avoided had Brands been allowed to bring in Nunes. The midfielder, for his part, has been a regular star performer for Sporting and even earned himself a call up to the Brazilian national team, rejecting them to represent Portugal instead.
Those are just two examples, and it’s likely there are plenty more. For example, how many times in his reign was Brands ignored as Everton followed the wishes of the manager at the time?
That was certainly the case with Carlo Ancelotti, who pushed for reunions with Allan and James Rodriguez, both at great expense. The Brazilian arrived for £22.5m from Napoli while the Colombian was free from Real Madrid, albeit with a sizeable wage packet.
Would Brands, a man whose focus was primarily on long-term gains rather than short-term solutions, have sanctioned two deals for 29-year-olds? It’s hard to imagine so.
It’s likewise hard to imagine either would have made the move without Ancelotti being at the club.
Indeed, had the money not been handed to Rodriguez last summer, it would have been available this summer, perhaps to push through the deal for Dumfries. A deeper dive into the finances is likely to show as much.
Regardless, the sentiment from England is very much that some of Everton’s biggest transfer flops during Brands’ reign do not have his fingerprints on them.
Instead, it appears he was working at a club where he was increasingly caught between a rock and a hard place. Or, to coin another phrase, where too many cooks were spoiling the broth.
Even when Brands tried to exert his influence, the actions of others stopped him from doing so. That was certainly the case when it came to the deals he lined up for Dumfries and Nunes this summer, two signings that would have solved two major issues at the club.
Perhaps one day, the Dutchman will tell his side of the story and make things clear, although that may be wishful thinking.
What is clear, though, is that the picture is not how some would have you view it. Brands was not a resounding success, but he was not a failure either. Judging him on the deals, he never did simply doesn’t hold up. The efforts for Dumfries and Nunes alone this summer demonstrate it was not him that stopped those issues from being resolved.
