Former Everton director of football Marcel Brands has revealed he wanted to hire Mikel Arteta as Marco Silva’s replacement but was overruled by owner Farhad Moshiri.
The PSV director has been speaking to NRC in the Netherlands about his career so far, which meant inevitably talking about his time at Goodison Park.
The Dutchman was brought in as Everton’s director of football in May 2018 after the disastrous reign of Steve Walsh, with the Blues hoping he could replicate the successful periods he’d enjoyed at PSV and AZ Alkmaar.
That did not prove to be the case, though, with it becoming apparent that Brands would not be allowed to operate as he had in the Netherlands.
Instead, he faced consistent input from Everton owner Farhad Moshiri when it came to managers, transfers and everything in between.
That was certainly the case when it came to replacing Marco Silva in 2019, when Brands had one man in mind for the job.
“The problem is: there is no patience. Twelve coaches have already been fired in the Premier League this season,” he said.
“In my second year, Marco Silva was fired, I tried to prevent that, but it was beyond my control. While I knew: he is a good trainer, he is now proving that at Fulham.
“People are trying to survive. The nasty thing is many good club people often go along in those rounds of redundancies. Physiotherapists, analysts, you name it.
“I then had to send people away who were good, hard-working. That’s difficult. And it doesn’t work either. In the first years I still had the idea that I could change something at Everton. But that did not work out.”
Ancelotti eventually ended up leaving Everton for a return to Real Madrid, with the Spanish giants taking the opportunity to hire him for a second time in 2021.
That left Everton looking for yet another manager and, following a somewhat protracted search, they elected to hire former Liverpool manager Rafa Benitez.
That was a controversial choice to say the least, with reports making it clear that Brands did not want the Spanish coach and would have preferred someone else.
By December he had left Everton by mutual consent after a miserable first half of the season that saw Benitez sacked not long after and replaced by Frank Lampard at the end of January.
One major issue that year was transfers, or the lack of them, and there was one in particular that Brands was not in favour of.
“It is completely different. English culture makes fans and media think that the manager is about transfers,” he added.
“And the owner determines a lot. He wanted Rafael Benítez as a coach in 2021, which was not my choice. And Benítez wanted Salomon Rondón, I couldn’t approve that.
“He was already in his thirties, was not on the scouting list, he was not going to bring Everton anything. Way too high salary too. I said I thought it was a bad idea. Think of it as a present for the trainer, said the owner. Then you are powerless.”
