Marco Silva admits he “knew it was almost impossible” for Everton to challenge the Premier League’s elite during his time in charge at Goodison Park and claims Farhad Moshiri sacked him against Marcel Brands’ wishes.
Despite embarking on an eager pursuit to hire Silva – leading to Everton agreeing to pay Watford £4m in compensation in response to a claim that he was subject to an “unwarranted approach by a Premier League rival” while in charge at Vicarage Road – Moshiri relieved him of his duties as Blues boss 18 months into his reign in December 2019 with the team in the relegation zone after a 5-2 defeat to Liverpool.
Now back in the Premier League after steering Fulham to the Championship title, with his side scoring 106 goals in the process, Silva has been reflecting on his time on Merseyside and although things initially started well for him, he reckons that he was always in a difficult position. Speaking in an exclusive interview to Record in his native Portugal, the 45-year-old said: “Everton are one of the biggest teams I have coached, without a doubt.
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“They are a club with a tremendous fan base, with a full stadium and great support even away from home. They have won many titles in the past and they are a club very much based on that heritage, in a city passionate about football and with a tremendous rivalry with Liverpool.
“It was a three-year project with a complete overhaul: a new coach and new sporting director. The job was about continuing to have results and creating a younger team, with a sporting director (Marcel Brands) who came from the Netherlands where the focus on young players is important.
“We had a very good transfer window. We spent a good amount of money, but we signed Lucas Digne, Richarlison and other players.
“We built a young team with the potential to play in the toughest league in the world, where the best players and coaches are. We started the season well, we had some setbacks in the middle with the elimination from the FA Cup – a competition in which Everton has a history and the fans look at the cups with tremendous ambition – but we finished the campaign playing very good football in the way that I like.
“We fought until the end to try and reach the European competitions and although we lost that possibility with two games to go, we took eighth place and improved on what had been the previous year at Everton.”
Silva cites losing “very important players” as a factor for the decline in his second season and insists that he retained the support of both Brands and his squad when he was axed. Idrissa Gueye was sold to Paris Saint-Germain in the summer of 2019 while the manager’s compatriot Andre Gomes suffered a serious ankle injury in a 1-1 draw at home to Tottenham Hotspur in November. He said: “The second season came in which we lost very important players and we couldn’t replace them.
“The sporting director admitted that he was against the decision, with the players fully involved with the coach, but the decision was up to the owner. The year before we also had bad results and we beat that moment of the season and it would happen again in the second season.
“We wouldn’t win titles, because Everton weren’t prepared for that to be in the top six. It was said from outside, but internally we knew it was almost impossible and that brought a lot of pressure from outside.
“It’s good to have ambition and expectations, but there can’t be too many expectations for what you want to create. We finished the first season in eighth place, the club changed coaches and got a huge name from football, like Carlo Ancelotti, and stayed in 12th and 10th and then last year they fought almost to the last game not to go down.”
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