Drawing against Manchester United on Tuesday night, Everton can count themselves relatively unlucky to not have walked away from Old Trafford with all three points.
A moment of pure panic from Ashley Williams saw José Mourinho’s side handed a last minute penalty, coolly slotted away by Zlatan Ibrahimovic, and Ronald Koeman will have to make do with somewhat undeserved parity.
The Dutchman has done a very good job restoring Everton to top-half football this season, and the Toffees’ board are reportedly a bit worried that someone could come and grab their manager away from them.
The stories that Koeman is on Barcelona’s shortlist to replace the departing Luis Enrique have done nothing to help this, and the board are apparently preparing for the worst case scenario by looking around at available managers.
On that list is reportedly former Bayer Leverkusen manager Roger Schmidt, with SportBild mentioning Everton as one of the few clubs capable of saving the German side from paying their ex-manager an extra €3.5m by 2019.
Handed that sum on departure from the club in March, a clause in his old contract was agreed that were Schmidt to be dismissed and wasn’t to find a new job by the season’s end, he would be entitled to an extra €3.5m.
Of course, Bayer Leverkusen will want to avoid that if possible, and only Schmidt agreeing to a new job before next season would do the trick.
West Ham and Leicester are also said to be interested, and out of the three, the Hammers are probably the most likely to be changing backroom over the summer.
Koeman isn’t top of Barcelona’s list, and there’s a strong chance he will be on the Goodison Park bench next season.
Then again, many thought he would be at St Mary’s for this campaign.
