It's Time to Talk about Marcel Brands

As we enter a New Year with the Toffees well placed in the Premier League table (hopefully it will last but I have my doubts), thoughts will inevitably focus on the January transfer window: Do the Blues need to strengthen any positions? As well as the perennial disposal of the underperforming deadwood which we still have quite a number of. But, while we are in this yellow tie month, one thing which now has become very urgent, and which Everton need to sort out very quickly, is the position of Director of Football, Marcel Brands, who is in the last 6 months of his contract.

Do the club offer Brands a new contract? Or allow him to leave in the Summer? Rumours are he is on the candidate list for Director of Football at Manchester United (but, if United are actually serious about getting a DoF this time, how much actual power they would have is questionable; it's been a running joke with them for god knows how long). But, be that as it may, Everton have a decision to make on Marcel Brands and need to do this as soon as possible. This being the case, how has Brands performed at the Blues since he came to the club in the Summer of 2018?

Brands, when he joined Evertn, had a daunting job in trying to trim down an overpaid, bloated underperforming squad. Now, 2½ years later, we still have some of these dead weights hanging around the club: Bolasie, Besic, Tosun, Pennington (just joined Shrewsbury Town on loan till the end of the season) to name but a few. At the same time, the number of these underperformers which Brands has managed to dispose of is quite a long one: Lookman, Vlasic (unlucky with us in my opinion), Walcott (loan to Southampton till the end of this season, when his contract will be up), Dowell, Niasse, Garbutt, Schneiderlin, to name but a few.

Good money was brought in for Lookman and for the much-missed (not a deadweight) Gana, while we lost nothing on the deal for Vlasic when he moved to CSKA Moscow. But it has to be said that a number of players were released after their contracts finally ran out and a very big proportion of the dead weights were moved out on loan and continually turned back up at Finch Farm when their loans either ended or were cut short.

Some of them, such as the above-mentioned Bolasie, Besic and Pennington are still on the Club's books. It was a massive task Brands faced when he came to the club in moving such overpaid dross on, and he has done, in my opinion, an average job. Yes, long contracts and stupid wages for very average players made his job hard, but I think that more should have been done to move on players such as Schneiderlin and the still-with-us Tosun earlier, while the 'out today, back tomorrow, loan moves for players such as Besic has just become tiresome to read about. Brands gets a solid C from me for his job in moving players out. So what about the incomings?

Brands's first season at Everton saw Richarlison brought in from Watford – a good piece of business and, sing as much as we might, it was not for £50 million. Sigurdsson is still our highest transfer fee.

Raids on Barcelona with the acquisitions of Digne, Mina, and Gomes (who was first a loan), all for under £30 million each, can also be seen as good business in the moves of Digne (turned out better than I thought, although I still think he is weak in the air) and Mina. Although Yerry still has his wayward days, I think we now have a solid Premier League centre-back.

Gomes is another story. He was injured when he joined and flattered to deceive when on the pitch, as well as continually having niggling injuries, before the good friend Son decided to put him out of action for a large part of last season. Has Gomes justified the price we paid for him? Not in my opinion, and he has continued to have niggling injuries since returning from Son’s so-called tackle.

Bringing players with questionable fitness records to the club has been a trait of Brands since he joined the club: Delph, anyone? A disaster signing from start to finish. Did we ever need such an average player in the first place? No, we never did. Even Yerry Mina does not have a stellar fitness record.

Then we have the case of Jean-Philippe Gbamin: Will he ever be fit to show us the player we thought we were getting? That is an open question. James Rodriguez and Allan also have questionable fitness records, especially Rodriguez. Alex Iwobi we definitely paid over the odds for, although he is starting to show some form over the last few months.

Abdoulaye Doucouré is yet to hit the best form he showed at Watford but seems a solid enough signing. Ben Godfrey certainly seems to be proving an astute piece of business while the signings of youngsters Jarred Branthwaite and Niels Nkounkou also fall into the 'good business' category. Assessing these incomings, Brands is probably in credit around the B- mark.

With the incoming, though, one must also look at Brands's stated aim at the club to sign players aged 25 or under who could grow together for a number of what is hoped to be successful seasons at the club, or moved on for a profit. In his first four transfer windows, Brands was true to his word with the incomings, with the exception of the supposed footballer Delph. But last Summer, he has (apart from Godfrey and Nkounkou) seen this idea torn to shreds.
Yes, all three of Rodriguez, Allan and Doucouré were brought in at reasonable prices. But Rodriguez and Allan were both 29 when signed (Allan is 30 on 8 January), while Doucouré turned 28 on the first day of 2021 (he must have really enjoyed that West Ham birthday game!!!). These signings, along with loan goalkeeper Robin Olsen, show that the plan for signing players 25 or under (which I think was the right policy), has been dumped for a 'success today' future under Carlo Ancelotti.

It can also be questioned: Were these the right players to sign? Certainly we needed some steel in midfield and Allan has, when fit, provided that and been very impressive. It is questionable that we needed two players in similar vein with the signing of Doucouré (although he seems to have been on our radar since he was in nappies).

James Rodriguez will miss half a season, give you some great games, go missing in others, and will not put much, if any, effort in defensively. I admit I am not the biggest fan of his signing, but I do wonder how much of a fan Brands was of any of these signings, or did he go out and get them? It is part of his job but it is actually Carlo Ancelotti who now calls all the shots on signings.

Finally, we move on to the Academy. Under our Director of Football, the plan seemed to be to streamline all age groups, getting them to play to one idea and plan, recruit young players from around the world who could be brought through the Under-23s, along with bringing through homegrown talent. If these players did not make the breakthrough to the first team, then we could sell them on for handsome profit.

In reality, the Everton pathway — Everton give young players a chance – is a massive myth, which the club is very good at propagating. Yes, we all know that, at any club, only one or two of any generation may actually breakthrough into the first team but under David Unsworth, Everton do nothing but produce players for lower league teams.

Unsworth’s record of actually producing quality players for the first team is abysmal. The whole Under-23 set-up: Unsworth, Jeffers, Ebbrell – and now we can add Baines to the list – is nothing more than an old boys club. Under Brands, we have not sorted any of this mess out and have in fact given David Unsworth more power, making him some sort of Czar over all age groups. I would actually fail Brands on the Academy.

So, all-in-all, what do we make of Director of Football Marcel Brands and his time at the club? After nearly 3 years, he is still trying to get rid of some of the deadwood he inherited; not a great plus point, but it was a mammoth task. Actually getting an Academy that functions and is on the way to producing at least a gem every now and then, I would say he has totally failed at, and has given more power to the main impediment to this David Unsworth and his cronies. (See Blocked Pathway).

Finally, we have his vision, which he has stated since his arrival at the club of producing players from the Academy and the signing of players 25 and under. On this final point, he has been mainly true to his word until laast Summer, when the signings went completely in reverse.

Was Brands totally on board with these signings? Or has he lost some of his power base to Carlo Ancelotti? The manager is here to try and do things today and not tomorrow – something which Moshiri seems to have put his support and wallet behind.

If this is the case, then – no matter the average job Brands has done overall – the job description he was brought to the club for has now changed, which may be why we are now close to the end of his contract with no offer of a new one to date.

Is he himself thinking it might be the right time to move on? Weighed against this is the reality that Brands is handsomely paid (not on the scale of Carlo, it has to be said) and has also maneuvered himself onto the Board of Directors at the club, not something to be given up lightly.

So the club needs to make a decision on our Director of Football pretty quickly; does he deserve a new contract? And is he the right person to go forward with Carlo's and Moshiri’s new 'jam today' philosophy?

If it is decided that Brands is not the man to go forward with this new vision, then it is hoped that the club are sounding out new candidates now. Just out of interest, the best Director of Football / Technical Director around, in the shape of Luís Campos, has left Lille. I do not see him coming to us, but any Club with ambition would be sounding him out.

Even in the unlikely scenario that we thought we could get him, he is someone who works in the younger market, something which seems to have been put on the back burner at Everton. But, one way or another, we need to talk about Marcel Brands.

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