The Sunday People's Steve Bates: "I'm not sure what Everton do from here. They've had way too many managers for a club of their stature and history in the last few years. They can't keep changing managers."
Sunday 3 February 2019 15:12, UK
Everton are in desperate need of a "really good summer of recruitment" but the Sunday Supplement panel think they should stick with Marco Silva as their manager.
The Toffees suffered their fourth home defeat of the Premier League season against Wolves on Saturday, leading to more questions about Silva's future.
Matt Law of The Telegraph was heavily critical of Silva, yet pinpointed their recruitment as the key area to improve.
"They've got to hope that the recruitment gets better now that Marcel Brands is in. They've spent a lot of money and yet they've never replaced [Romelu] Lukaku," he said.
"How do you spend all that money and not get a replacement for Lukaku? It's bewildering for me. Apart from their defence, their problem is they never have a proper striker; they've tried Richarlison, other things, put pressure on [Dominic] Calvert-Lewin sometimes.
"How have we gone so far without them getting a proper striker? Palace get [Michy] Batshuayi on loan and there are other strikers who join other clubs, and they never get one. They had a spell where they kept signing number 10s.
"The summer - apart from Silva, who despite my criticism I think they should stick with him - they've got to have a really good summer of recruitment."
The Sunday People's Steve Bates says that the club can't keep changing managers even if they are "woefully under-performing".
"I'm not sure what Everton do from here. They've had way too many managers for a club of their stature and history in the last few years," he said. "They can't keep changing managers.
"The way Everton are conceding goals, it's almost a bit of a throwback to the [Roberto] Martinez era. He was criticised by Evertonians for having this free style, open game and not really shoring up the defence.
"He was far too concerned with how they looked, playing the beautiful game going forward and that didn't work at Everton. Then there was Ronald Koeman and that didn't work.
"[Sam] Allardyce got them out of a hole but it was never going to last long term because he didn't fit their profile of what a manager should be. Yet he's actually got a better record than Marco Silva.
"Everton have got to be really careful because they'll get themselves in a real mess if they start talking about: "Is this working? What are we going to do about it?' They've got to stick with Silva.
"They are woefully under-performing at the moment. That was their 10th defeat of the season, in 25 games, the fourth at home. That's pretty appalling for a team of Everton's capabilities.
"They've spent an awful lot of money and it's just not going right. They've got a blend of youth and experience in the team, so you can't criticise that. They're not an old team. They've got plenty of young players around but it's just not working.
"The buck must stop with Silva."
