According to reports today, Fabio Cannavaro has emerged as a shock candidate to replace Rafael Benitez as Everton manager.
Benitez was sacked following Everton’s 2-1 loss to Norwich City after a dismissal run which saw the Toffees secure just one league victory since September.
The former Italy captain is said to have already been 'interviewed' and it has been reported he is being considered alongside names such as Frank Lampard and Wayne Rooney.
The ECHO understands that while some preliminary discussions may have taken place with the 48-year-old, he is not in the frame to replace the sacked Rafa Benitez as things stand.
But if the situation were to change - what kind of manager would Everton be getting?
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Cannavaro started his coaching career back in 2014 with Saudi Arabian side Al-Ahli. He was later appointed head coach of Chinese club Guangzhou Evergrande and remained there until 2016.
That summer, he signed a contract with second-tier Chinese side Tianjin Quanjian and guided the team to the league title. He returned to Guangzhou Evergrande in 2017 and remained there until September 2021, winning the Chinese FA Cup in 2018, the Super League in 2019 and was also named the Chinese FA Coach of the Year in 2017.
He even briefly took charge of the China national side in 2019.
Despite a distinguished playing career and his relative managerial success in Asia, very little is known about Cannavaro in terms of his management style or philosophy.
To try and get a picture of what we could expect in this regard, we can look at some of the characteristics of Cannavaro’s Guangzhou Evergrande side during his final full year there when his side reached the championship final before suffering defeat to league winners Jiangsu Suning.
In that campaign, Guangzhou predominantly lined up in a 4-1-4-1 formation. Cannavaro is clearly influenced by a career that saw him playing for some of the biggest clubs in the world and his team look to be exhibit similar domineering traits.
His team dominated the ball against most opponents they faced and finished second in the division in terms of having the highest possession average.
They also ranked inside the top two in terms of PPDA, a metric used to analyse how aggressive a team press their opponents high up the pitch.
The results of the above were that they finished the season with the second-highest number of goals scored, and accumulated the third-highest xG.
Additionally, they ranked inside the league’s top four sides in terms of having the highest number of shots on average per 90.
Meanwhile, at the other end of the pitch, no side conceded fewer goals than their total of 16, even despite facing the fifth-highest number of shots on average across the league.
What all of the above indicates then is that Cannavaro looks to be a manager built for teams who can dominate the ball and play high up the pitch.
In an ideal world, that’d be Everton. But at present, it isn’t.
They’ve not got the players capable of implementing such a philosophy, meaning Cannavaro would need to adjust his approach hugely if he was to be appointed and to have any success.
