Everton manager news: Is Wayne Rooney the right man to replace Rafael Benitez at Goodison Park?
- Andy Schooler
- 18 January 2022
Derby County manager has earned rave reviews this season but with the Toffees in a precarious position, does have sufficient experience to guide them to safety?
In March, it will be 20 years since Everton last appointed a manager who could really be considered a success.
A 30-something, not-long-retired player by the name of David Moyes was appointed and immediately labelled his new employer 'The People's Club'.
The phrase can still be seen on the Park End stand at Goodison, a hospitality suite named as such.
The appointment was made in a bid to save the Blues from relegation - they sat 16th, only outside the relegation zone on goal difference - and had just produced a famously bad performance when losing 3-0 at Middlesbrough.
It was undoubtedly a gamble - the likes of Double-winning manager George Graham were available at the time - but one which paid rich dividends.
Moyes kept Everton up with something to spare, led them to a seventh-placed finish the following season and into the Champions League (well, the qualifiers) little over three years after arriving.
After a chaotic six years under the ownership of Farhad Moshiri, every Everton fan would like a repeat of that rise - and it would appear the template might be about to be reused.
Rooney firmly in the frame
With Duncan Ferguson in temporary charge at Goodison, Wayne Rooney is reportedly to be interviewed and, yes, he's in his 30s and recently retired. Many see him, as they did with Moyes, as the next bright, young British manager.
But if Moyes was a gamble, Rooney would be an even greater one - and this is not an appointment Everton, just six points outside the relegation zone, can afford to get wrong.
He's had just a year in management at Derby County; Moyes already had four under his belt by the time he arrived, winning the title in the third tier with Preston before taking them within one game of the Premier League (they ultimately lost the play-off final).
Another significant difference is that Moyes arrived with a growing reputation, nearly all of it good.
Rooney's reputation has already been forged - of course, that process began at Everton - and he will long be remembered as being arguably the greatest English player of his generation.
On this day in 2002, a 16-year-old Wayne Rooney scored his first Premier League goal ☄️
— B/R Football (@brfootball) October 19, 2021
(via @Everton)pic.twitter.com/Hu73dOHM64
Yet that brings problems for his managerial career.
Whatever he does in management will struggle to live up to what he achieved as a player - England's highest-ever goalscorer, Champions League winner, five Premier League titles - and his fame has brought a scrutiny which has often revealed details of his life which frankly have only distracted from his professional career.
Everton will be fooling themselves if they think that baggage won't affect them in some way if Rooney is appointed.
Working heroics at Derby
On the plus side, Rooney is undoubtedly doing something right at Derby.
Having 15 points deducted before the season began must have been a massive mental blow to his squad and they then had another six lopped off.
Yet the Rams are actually making a fight of things and have already climbed off the foot of the table. They lost only seven of 26 and it's not beyond the realms of possibility that they can survive.
It would be some achievement given the constraints placed on him in terms of finance and transfers.
Motivation-wise, Rooney has been delivering. The best managers are the ones that can get the very best out of players on a consistent basis, whether those players are journeymen or world superstars.
Everton have none of the latter - they've frankly spent an absolute fortune on a lot of dross under Moshiri - but if Rooney is appointed then he will inherit a squad which has performed well below its best for much of the season. In that sense, there is potential.
That ability to cajole players into performances was something Moyes - Rooney's first manager at senior level - was famous for. Top effort was a prerequisite for the Scot, who arrived with both Paul Gascoigne and David Ginola on the club's books. Neither lasted long.
Everton need a rebuild
Reshaping the current squad will be on the agenda for the new manager, although the more pressing task is to climb up the table. Everton fans know their run-in is tough. Results are needed in the coming weeks.
Everton's run-in
April 2 - West Ham A
April 9 - Manchester United H
April 16 - Crystal Palace H
April 23 - Liverpool A
April 30 - Chelsea H
May 7 - Leicester A
May 15 - Brentford H
May 22 - Arsenal A
Moyes managed to deliver on that front all those years ago and when he did set about rebuilding, it was done on what was a pretty tight budget.
Things have improved on that front under Moshiri, although the big-spending of his early years in charge has recently come home to roost - Everton are now having to carefully balance their books to avoid falling foul of financial fair-play restrictions.
When Everton fans were screaming for a money man to come into the club, they would not have envisaged the current situation more than half a billion pounds down the line.
It is one exacerbated by the fact that the club is also currently without a director of football and scouting chief.
It all says much about the lack of direction from the top - ultimately money-man Moshiri. All the gear but no idea is a phrase which springs to mind.
And that must make it harder than it should for a club of Everton's stature to attract a new manager.
Given the circumstance, experience should really be what they are looking for right now - Graham Potter would fit the bill having managed in the bottom half of the Premier League and pulled his side well away from danger and towards brighter days.
But would Potter really want to leave a well-run Brighton, currently in the top half of the table, for the chaos at Everton?
Moshiri has rarely convinced with his footballing decisions and all the signs are he's happy to go with Rooney, despite his rookie status.
It would be a risky appointment - for both the club and Moshiri's investment.
What dropping into the Championship would mean for a club which has haemorrhaged money in recent years, is something Everton fans simply do not want to contemplate.
