Season 2021-22 Opinion Talking Points

Covering Their Backs

Cause I'll always know when you been cheating.
And I'll always know you've been untrue.
I'll always know.

Merle Haggard — I'll Always Know

With fan unrest starting to rise in the Goodison stands, the Director of Football (DoF) Marcel Brands is the person to pay the price for the complete mess the Blues are in. Make no mistake, Brands was not the person written on the tin when he joined Everton. He has been an underwhelming DoF. But is the mess the club is in all down to the DoF? Has the cancer been cut out with his removal?

Brands's moves in the transfer market have been, to put it bluntly, mainly failures. But how much he had to do with some of the transfers is questionable. Under Marco Silva, Richarlison was the new manager's pick (although on Brands's radar, we are to believe). Nothing wrong with this transfer, Brands got it done for £35 million plus add-ons (not the song amount). Richarlison has been a qualified success and will make Everton a tidy profit when he inevitably leaves in the Summer. But the other signings made while working with Silva are very much an overpriced mixed bag at best.

Yerry Mina is a good defender, but with a very questionable injury record. Lucas Digne was never worth the money, one good season and a liability ever since. André Gomes was another player with a flaky fitness record. Bernard was free, was a Marco pick, and never up to the physicality of the Premier League. Delph a big-mouthed treatment table. Alex Iwobi beggars belief, a complete panic-buy, when the Blues could not afford the money for Wilfred Zaha. The hospital case called Gbamin was bad judgement and bad luck.

The above were all signed when Marco was the manager, a person who was at least trying to work with the DoF. (Added to this were the totally mismanagement of loan signing Moise Kean and the supposed right-back loan, who could not even get his socks right.) Once Marco got the chop, things changed.

The clueless billionaire owner moved from his shiny young progressive manager idea, back to his already once-failed Hollywood dream. After this course had been set, the limited transfer power Brands had while working with Silva evaporated in a second.

Why did Moshiri need a DoF when the Hollywood dream was in place? The bumbling billionaire could now do what he likes best: dabble in the transfer market for what he perceived as a Hollywood star in the manager's seat. What the disastrous Carlo Magnifico wanted… he got.

In came the Colombian treatment table and the average Allan who had worked with Fantastico at Napoli. Neither of these players had anything to do with Brands. They were Ancelotti's picks, funded by his new billionaire chum. Doucouré was brought in, but he had been on the club's to-do list ever since Silva. Godfrey was the only Brands signing in the Magnifico era, plus to his credit, the ones for the future (I am to be convinced): Branthwaite and Nkounkou.

Once the Italian had defected to Real Madrid and Benitez had stepped in, the now penniless Blues brought in Demarai Gray, Andros Townsend, Salomon Rondon, Asmir Begovic and Andy Lonergan. Again, none of these players had anything to do with the DoF (except maybe Gray, to be fair); they were all picks by Benitez. In essence, Brands never had full control over the club's transfer policy and, once Silva got the sack, he was nothing more than a negotiator of deals.

Brands came to the club with the aim of signing young hungry players for the first team, and whom the club could also cash in on in the future. In tandem with this was the plan of producing an academy which did the same thing.

As Brands quickly lost control of transfer policy, the above aims soon disappeared. The last few seasons have seen the Blues sign James, Doucouré, Allan, Gray, Godfrey, Townsend, Rondon, Begovic and Lonergan. Godfrey apart, and maybe Gray might squeeze in at 25, Everton have become a team signing 30-year-olds and beyond. None of the above apart from Godfrey and quite possibly Gray are players Brands would have signed. The young hungry player strategy has been well and truly dumped.

As for the club's academy, the failure to produce any real talent has been a hot topic for a number of years. Headed by David Unsworth and a bunch of ex-players, the academy is nothing more than an old boys' network. Moshiri has allowed this state of affairs to carry on because he has no interest in it, while blue-blood Bill and probably Denise Barret-Baxendale protect Unsworth and his cronies, as we are all one big blue family. Brands did not make one significant change to the academy (except the backward step of giving Unsworth more power). Was he ever allowed to implement reform, or was he constantly blocked by Unsworth, Kenwright, and Barrett-Baxendale?

As for the managers, Brands as DoF should have been the person to set out the vision and style of play for the club, and then come up with a list of candidates suited to that style of play and vision. In reality, he came to a club with Moshiri's progressive young manager, in place. To be fair, they did at least try to have some sort of working relationship. Once Moshiri panicked and sacked Silva, the writing was on the wall for Brands.

Moshiri turned back to his favourite topic, the Hollywood dream manager. So, we got the disastrous Ancelotti. Never ever was Ancelotti on Brands's radar. You only have to go back to the lukewarm comments on the few times Brands ever spoke on his working relationship with Ancelotti to see this. Once Magnifico was in full control of steering the sinking Goodison ship, with his starry-eyed owner looking on lovingly, we were at the beginning of the end.

Now Ancelotti has defected to Madrid we have the monstrous hybrid, half-Hollywood, half-safe-pair-of-hands ex-Satan in the manager's seat. As the pathetic manager search dragged on through the summer, it was clear Brands (widely reported to have wanted Graham Potter), was totally ignored. Moshiri, as is his wont, listens to no-one but himself, agents and it seems with the choice of the monstrous Benitez, Uncle Usmanov and Roman Abramovich.

At the end of the day, it is hard to feel any sympathy for Brands.

Brands should have walked in the summer (if not sooner), instead of signing a new three-year contract. He was a DoF in name only during his whole time at the club. He never had the authority and power to do the job of a DoF. How can anyone work under those circumstances? But he plodded on with a nice salary and place on the board.

As Brands finally falls on his sword his cryptic remark to the supporter and the end of the derby debacle “Is it only the players” is clear in its meaning. It's not only the players, it's the whole structure and leadership of the club, which as DoF he was never allowed to try and fix.

Will the removal of the underperforming Brands change anything? No, it won't. Benitez, the Board, Unsworth (and his academy empire) and the owner may think so. But in reality, it is just the start of the quickening decline the Blues have been on since Moshiri bought into the club. Will we stick with the DoF model (the best model in my eyes), now Brands has gone? Let's see? But what is the point, when the DoF is not allowed to do the job he was employed to do?

The removal of Brands at the end of the day is a desperate move by the owner, the board and Unsworth to cover their backs, pretend things are changing, while carrying on the path to doom they have us on. Brands was part of the problem, but he has also become the sacrificial lamb, the scapegoat on the good ship Titanic, sorry, Goodison.

You can pretend and try to cheat the supporters all you want by disposing of Brands. In the cold light of day, you are being untrue and just covering your backs. As Merle sang “I'll always know”.

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