Seasons2019-20Everton News
Silva rues ‘tough moments’ and ‘tough market’ in final months at Everton

Former Everton manager, Marco Silva, says that he is a better manager for his experiences in England and that he is looking for his next post, preferably back in the Premier League.
The Portuguese, the chosen long-term successor to Ronald Koeman, was sacked as the Toffees' boss last December following a dreadful run of form that left the club languishing in the relegation zone, ending an 18-month spell that had briefly been highly promising.
Speaking via video to Sky Sports, Silva says he understands why Everton made the decision he made but he also feels he and his team were hard done-by in terms of the summer 2019 transfer window, bad luck and controversial VAR decisions over the first half of the season.
"I've had a lot of time to reflect on everything," he said. "When I left it was a tough decision for everyone. I had the confidence with my staff and the players that we will get things again for us. But I have to respect it was made. The position in the table was not good.
"The [transfer] market was difficult for us because we had a tough market the season before. We did fantastic, the way we finished [2018-19], and I said it would be key for us to get stronger this season and the season after. It was a key situation but it was a difficult market for us. We signed young players again, and most of them came in the last week of the market. It's always difficult It's not to find excuses but we have to be open.
"We had tough moments in which we were not lucky at all. We scored three own goals in that period. I believe myself and the staff worked really hard and gave our maximum but sometimes things don't go the way we wanted. The Brighton and the Tottenham games especially was very strange what happened on the pitch.
"But after we had moments we didn't play the way we wanted and as manager I have to take responsibility."
Silva, who had spells at Hull City and Watford before Farhad Moshiri selected him as the man to lead Everton to a new era, says he isn't desperate to jump at any opportunity but he is keen to work again in one of Europe's top leagues, with the Premier League at the top of his wishlist.
"I am preparing for the right [role]. That doesn't mean it has to just be in the Premier League. I have targets to manage in different leagues as well. I am not desperate to go for anywhere.
“And when I go again, I have to prove [myself] again because you have to prove yourself every day in football. For sure I have to be a better manager now."
Reader Comments (48)
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2 Posted 10/06/2020 at 08:40:43
3 Posted 10/06/2020 at 08:42:40
Unable to change or adapt to different situations and slightly delusional.
I'm sure he'll do well somewhere else.
4 Posted 10/06/2020 at 08:49:06
Yes, maybe, just maybe, he had a worse rub of the green that the other two. But to me he was all poor Plan A, no Plan B.
Only the very Ill-advised would hire him in the first place and only the very desperate in the Premier League would ever hire him again.
5 Posted 10/06/2020 at 08:52:41
- if Gbamin had stayed fit to replace Gueye
- if Zouma had signed on a permanent deal
- if his number two had stayed put and not gone back to Portugal
... He'd probably still be our manager and we'd probably be about 7th or 8th in the league.
However, he looked out of ideas once the chips were down so we should be better placed with Ancelloti - especially if Ancelotti has better luck in replacing Gueye in particular and maybe Zouma.
Not sure I can see him getting a job as big as the Everton job again but may pop up in the Premier League again
6 Posted 10/06/2020 at 08:54:25
7 Posted 10/06/2020 at 09:07:44
8 Posted 10/06/2020 at 10:29:48
9 Posted 10/06/2020 at 10:58:15
So, even though it is inevitable that he will leave at some point in the future, he (Richarlison) wants to achieve things at Everton and is in no hurry to leave. All very nice and reassuring to hear.
10 Posted 10/06/2020 at 11:29:39
The benefits in Calvert-Lewin's scoring is evident and we have a manager who has seen it and done it, so we won't be lacking in tactical nous.
Good luck to Marco.
11 Posted 10/06/2020 at 11:39:36
Turns out he was a little out of his depth even allowing for the bad luck he/we suffered. Hope he goes on to do good things!
12 Posted 10/06/2020 at 11:58:58
13 Posted 10/06/2020 at 12:09:43
Brands did not have a great summer last year and that was compounded by Gbamin's season-ending injury. Not the best luck for Silva though he made issues worse at times with a lack of flexibility and poor substitutions. His record at coming from behind indicates an inability to affect matters on the pitch during the game.
Still think he's a decent, hard-working manager and would not be surprised to see him do well elsewhere. Possibly never at the highest levels though. Although that hair deserves to be seen at the top!
14 Posted 10/06/2020 at 12:40:35
The job was simply too big for him. Thankfully, we have finally shown ambition in our recruitment and hired a top manager.
15 Posted 10/06/2020 at 12:53:42
16 Posted 10/06/2020 at 13:36:13
They've all had their limitations well and truly exposed since.
Gana may not have been able to play himself but, fuck me, he knew how to put fires out.
17 Posted 10/06/2020 at 14:06:48
Zouma and Gueye were big losses, one for his pace and the other one for his energy, possibly the two most vital commodities in modern day football?
18 Posted 10/06/2020 at 16:50:21
19 Posted 10/06/2020 at 17:48:45
Silva couldn't motivate a cat to go after a den of mice. He stood like the captain of a sinking ship not knowing what to do.
Duncan (a relative novice) showed him in a few games what he could have done. Build the players' confidence and motivation and play to their strengths.
I hate this footballing philosophy bullshit where players are made to fit a certain tactical way of playing without any flexibility. That is how Martinez got Wigan relegated and nearly repeated the trick with us.
Managers that win things are good managers. Managers that take teams into trouble are not worthy of the mantle.
Nice guy, useless manager.
20 Posted 10/06/2020 at 18:38:41
It's true there was bad luck and, worse still, I don't think he ever had all the players on board.
His communication of tactics and man-management were poor. His motivational skills were poor. In some games, I was expecting a reaction from a previous defeat and there was nothing, just another flat performance.
The icing on the cake came with his in-game management. This was so incoherent, it made him look like a chancer and added to the universal disillusionment.
21 Posted 10/06/2020 at 18:56:46
22 Posted 10/06/2020 at 19:33:52
23 Posted 10/06/2020 at 20:55:05
Ferguson gave Ancelotti the 4-4-2; let's see if Carlo with all his experience and tactical knowledge changes the set-up and shows his flexibility, because, for me, that's where Silva failed.
24 Posted 10/06/2020 at 21:04:21
But, for now, it is the experiened man in charge. Hope he gets us somewhere.
Marco who??
25 Posted 10/06/2020 at 21:18:24
But remember Burnley won 2-0 there a few weeks later. And remember certainly back then Duncan didn't want the job. Let's see what the future brings.
26 Posted 10/06/2020 at 21:32:58
27 Posted 10/06/2020 at 22:06:44
May be in Greece, Cyprus or Albania but I don't see any Premier League club taking him on in any time soon.
28 Posted 10/06/2020 at 22:39:15
He strikes me to be one of those modern managers we seem to get a lot of, particularly the foreign ones. They are undoubtedly good coaches and I'm sure their training sessions are outstanding. Martinez was similar; I always thought he would be best placed as a youth team / development coach.
But in the unpredictable nature of a top flight match scenario, they are unable to act or make decisive decisions when plan A (which was exercised on the training ground) doesn't go to plan. Hence sitting there, arms folded, waiting until the 65th minute before changing things, by which point, it's too late.
As the military say, "no plan survives contact", so always be prepared to respond and react to the unfolding scenario in front of you. Yes, remain calm and don't panic, but sometimes, when it's obviously gone wrong, be prepared to act decisively and swiftly. He didn't have this in his locker. Also, a motivator he was not.
29 Posted 10/06/2020 at 22:52:26
By the way how, many points did Ancelotti pick up against these teams? One — that's how many.
30 Posted 10/06/2020 at 22:58:31
Silva was clearly unable to manage the club beyond the squad, and he wasn't very good at that in fairness.
Hopefully, Carlo Ancelotti has made his own position clear to Moshiri and our weird boardroom. Hopefully the clarity around that will enthuse Moshiri (and it is Moshiri alone) to provide the monies necessary to achieve success as a football club and not just a charity.
31 Posted 10/06/2020 at 23:48:48
He brought in some exciting players, like Richarlison and Bernard, which is great. But the same tactics and formation against all teams simply failed. Asking the players to play a high line and keep pressing and play faster and faster is just plain stupid. Almost every time the same reason used for not winning a game – we didn't play fast enough. How?
When things were clearly not working, still stick with the same tactics and hope it would work next time. Every time I watch Leceister play, it just gave me a heartache. It can be us. But it feels we are so far behind now.
32 Posted 11/06/2020 at 12:27:23
33 Posted 11/06/2020 at 19:16:24
Things could have gone better in the transfer market, but he still had enough to work with – at least in terms of producing better and more consistent results than he was.
Ultimately, I think the promise and potential shown in his first season justified the appointment, but it just didn't work out in the end.
34 Posted 12/06/2020 at 13:30:07
He got our workhorse and what s player he'll be in years to come, our Charlie. Signings weren't great. Silva put the fear of God into those top 4 teams for a while. Look where we were in that league and look at how we played to finish and save Silva his job that season. He was better against the better teams.
35 Posted 12/06/2020 at 17:20:21
36 Posted 12/06/2020 at 17:36:12
However, when I think back to this time last year and some of the joyous football we were watching and players like Keane, Zouma, Digne and Gueye all being coached to standards they hadn't reached before, I was really excited about the club going forward and wishing for the new season until Brands had other ideas.
One year on, the squad is arguably stronger with the emergence of Calvert-Lewin and Holgate as top players as well as the summer outlay with only really Zouma and Gueye gone. We have replaced one of our poorest managers statistically with a legend of the game yet ironically I have much less optimism for the coming season due to the standards we have witnessed this season both prior to and since Carlo's tenure began.
37 Posted 12/06/2020 at 17:50:10
Silva then couldn't change his team around to combat those teams who sat back and hit us on the break. When we played the poorer teams who sat back, or when the opposition would get the first goal from a silly mistake, he had no clue how to break a team down. He rewarded those who had played well against the better teams by playing the exact same way against the poorer teams.
Finally, Silva then bottled it when we had a run of games against the better teams this season, towards the end of his tenure, and went overly defensive to try and scrape a result. If he'd have stuck with his guns in these games he could have got some results and earned a stay of execution.
Unfortunately for Silva, he was also at Everton at the wrong time. We had money, spent heavily and expected instant success. Therefore he defaulted to so-called ‘experienced professionals' who were supposedly less likely to make the mistakes a younger, more exciting and more exuberant, player might. This made us slow, ponderous and uncreative.
38 Posted 12/06/2020 at 17:52:32
What's not in doubt is the fact that he is a nice chap and represented Everton very well. I hope he does well.
39 Posted 12/06/2020 at 20:54:08
To my eyes, Morgan's dynamism was his forte and aside from this he was a bit of a jack of all trades and decent at everything without being a master of anything in particular. I believe he had a couple of injuries in the last year at the Saints and never looked the same athletic imposing figure again. I believe It was then when he lost what was his money-spinner.
I don't think he had the all-round game to compensate or re-invent once his legs had gone. For example, Keane a similar type of player could rely on his unique willpower, his excellent reading of the game and his inability to give the ball away to reinvent as a sitter once he lost his athleticism.
On the gossip, I just can't see Nice affording him. Unfortunately, the teams that could won't want him and there would be many admirers in his homeland but he's way out of their budget.
40 Posted 13/06/2020 at 14:41:48
The bottom line for me was the football was awful. Everything down the sides, no play through the middle, if we mustered 3 shots on goal an entire game, it was a miracle.
Good man, poor manager.
41 Posted 13/06/2020 at 16:51:52
Bang average inept bluffer out of his depth in a puddle.
The only positive thing about him is that he definitely wasn't Allardyce.
42 Posted 14/06/2020 at 00:41:12
Biggest positive I believe he had was to help bring in Richarlison and there followed more ambitious, attacking, skilful players in Bernard and Silva.
I think the no Zouma fiasco was a large negative, as was losing Gana, but player decisions – not Silva's.
His biggest mistake was playing Schniderlin and asking our defenders to play out from the back all the time. The team lacked cohesion and seemingly had no real plan of attack which were his fault.
Bringing in the prickly, fairly inexperienced ex-Arsenal striker as coach didn't seem to work. Another mistake.
Anyway we have moved on for a much better and experienced winning manager. NSNO
43 Posted 14/06/2020 at 10:41:30
He needs to learn from his mistakes. Needs to improve his game management and work the right way with the team he had even if he loses players. He would be very good with a top or good squad of players.
Everton are bang average with some good players. I hope Carlo makes good subs at the right time and plays to his team's strengths.
You can tell Arteta is a thinker and will be a top manager some day. He was a very intelligent footballer for Everton and Arsenal. Arsenal took the risk on him as manager. He's unproven, though, and that is the difference.
44 Posted 14/06/2020 at 11:43:16
"Silva will become a very good manager."
Hahahahahhahaha.... really cheered me up, that, John. I'll be chuckling all day on that one.
45 Posted 14/06/2020 at 18:06:20
He was my choice for the Everton job and everything I have seen so far has only reaffirmed to me that he would have been a great appointment. Not only do I think that he has improved the current players immensely but his shopping list if media reports are correct comprises of Aarons, Upamecano, Partey and Jovic, all of whom I'd be delighted to see signing for us.
What has impressed me most about him is that he was quick to address Arsenal's weaknesses and is clearly his own man rather than just being a mini Guardiola. Indeed I have already seen him adopt a little of Moyes when the time called for it against Leeds in the cup.
I think in time we may look back at him as the one that got away.
47 Posted 14/06/2020 at 19:57:05
I would have liked to see what could have been if he and Brands were given all of Moshiri's cash instead of the clueless Koeman and Walsh.
48 Posted 14/06/2020 at 20:18:03
But, for me, the cruellest break was a couple of days before that defeat when, after totally outplaying a high-riding Leicester side for over an hour and leading 1-0 we succumbed to a couple of late goals, the second of which, in the last minute of play, saw a linesman raise his flag for offside (after Davies, under no pressure, had given the ball away in the middle of the park).
Lucky he most certainly wasn't.
49 Posted 22/06/2020 at 04:02:06
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1 Posted 10/06/2020 at 07:43:58
Everyone must be reflecting during the lockdown, but not everyone is capable of change, but best of luck to you in your next job Marco, whenever you go back to work!