With Everton now searching for their seventh manager in less than six years, Neville Southall has slammed the club’s recruitment policy and delivered a damning appraisal of former director of football Marcel Brands.
Brands departed Everton after three-and-a-half years in December with his final act at Goodison Park being a verbal exchange with an irate fan after the 4-1 defeat to Liverpool.
The Dutchman has been followed out of the exit door this week by manager Rafa Benitez after the 2-1 loss to Norwich City left him with just one win from his last 13 Premier League matches in charge of the club.
Southall believes most of Everton’s problems stem from a poor recruitment process and that Brands should shoulder plenty of the blame for that.
Speaking courtesy of freebets.com, he told the ECHO: “There may be factions in the board room that need sorting out, there might need to be a restructure over how we look at the players, there’s certainly a recruiting problem because we’ve brought in signings who haven’t got us any further on.
“If your recruitment is poor in any business then that will reflect badly on you, leading to poor results.
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“I think Marcel Brands was horrendous. I honestly believe he did a disservice to Everton, I don’t think he was any good.
“Some of the players that he brought in, if you slammed a door they fell over, they were that weak.
“I can understand the two younger lads who were brought in this month because while they’re quite raw and inexperienced, they’ll hopefully be alright for the future but while you can buy a couple of them, fans want to see proven quality come through the door.”
Southall was widely-considered the best goalkeeper in the world during his time at Goodison Park and made a record 751 appearances for Everton and won more trophies (two League Championships, two FA Cups and the European Cup-Winners’ Cup) with the club than any other player.
However, while he hit the heights with the Blues, under-achieving acquisitions in recent years have left him scratching his head as to the direction the club are going in.
Southall said: “Where’s your vision for the club, where’s your philosophy?
“We signed Bernard and we also signed Yerry Mina and I’m left thinking, 'what is an Everton player?' We haven’t got an identity.
“When Evertonians go to the game they want pride, passion, work rate and skill.
“We seem to be getting a little bit of each of those in everybody. There are a few players there who are having a really good go but there’s a few that aren’t.
“I think that in this day and age if you can’t run about for a club like Everton, you don’t deserve to be there.
“We need to get an identity over what an Everton player is but what we have done is gone with the identity of the manager.
“We should be saying, 'no, this is what Everton’s identity is and the managers have to fit into us'.
“Lots of clubs do it. We’ve probably got basically the same trouble as Manchester United and Tottenham Hotspur because the players there are acting like, 'we’ll have a go some weeks and other weeks we won’t have a go'.
“Maybe it’s become the time that we just need to be a bit stronger as a club and say, 'this is what an Everton player is, this is our philosophy. We want to give the people what they actually want which is the kind of football they’ve seen in the past'.
“That’s pressing high up, getting opponents to make mistakes in their own half and then steamrollering them.”
There are certain players at the club who Southall rates but he fears there aren’t enough of them and reckons Everton should always be striving to bring in new faces who can raise the bar.
He said: “ Richarlison is an Everton player. Dominic Calvert-Lewin is an Everton player for sure.
“Richarlison is real class but the trouble is when you’ve only got one or two, you’ll always have vultures sniffing around you.
“If I had the money, I’d rather buy a Rolls-Royce than a Fiat Panda but we’re buying Fiat Pandas.
“That’s no disrespect to them because the lads who are coming in are trying but at the end of the day you’ve got to buy quality.
“We need to make sure we don’t get people sneaking through the door that can’t run, can’t jump or if it’s a windy day you can’t play him because he falls over.
“You can’t go short-term anymore. What’s the point in signing some nugget who is not going to win you the league?”
Southall recalls that such striving for excellence was the key to success in the mid-1980s when Howard Kendall made ruthless decisions like replacing fan favourite Andy Gray with Gary Lineker and that Everton should try to re-adopt such an approach.
He said: “If there’s somebody out there better then we should sign them. That’s the problem we’re having. Jordan Pickford and Dominic Calvert-Lewin are two great players but shouldn’t we be looking for better already?
“Shouldn’t we be looking for a better centre-forward than Calvert-Lewin? Shouldn’t we be looking for a better goalie than Pickford?
“Not because they’re doing anything wrong but because the club should be looking forward.
“We just go, 'oh well, these will do for a bit’, and then when somebody comes in, it’s like, 'we might have to sell someone here'.
“While you’ve got decent players in decent positions, you’ve still got to be looking for better and that’s all over the pitch.
“It doesn’t make any sense to sit there and think about resting on your laurels.
“Howard was always looking for something better. When we won the league he was looking for someone better.
“He wanted to change things a little bit and make it harder for everyone.
“We’re living for today but we should be living to win trophies.”
The 63-year-old former Wales international also wants Everton to adopt an equally cut-throat attitude when it comes to shipping out squad members who are unsettled or surplus to requirements.
He said: “I’d rather us lose three players who don’t want to be there than signing three players that do because at the moment we need players who are going to win us the league.
“I don’t know what went on in the background with Lucas Digne but if the manager thought he was a bad influence or didn’t want to be there then get rid of him. We don’t have loyalty to any player, the club have never had a loyalty to any player.
“This is a business that’s got to be ruthless. You’ve got to be like that.”
With Farhad Moshiri yet again searching for the latest new manager to lead Everton to Bramley-Moore Dock, Southall believes that the owner could benefit from having his former team-mate Graeme Sharp now on the board as the Blues strive to return to the levels the legendary striker and goalkeeper team-mate achieved on the pitch ahead of what will be a pivotal moment in the club’s history.
He said: “Do we just want to make do and mend until we go to the new ground or actually move there with a chance of winning things?
“The owner has got to value the club at more than that. They’ve got to value Everton as much as the fans but at the moment I think the fans value this club far more than anybody else.
“Their ambition doesn’t seem to be matched by anyone else at the club.
“This club is going to a new stadium soon and we’ve got to look at whether this team is going to carry us into Europe, is this team going to win us the league?
“The benchmark has to be when recruiting, 'is this player going to win us the league?'. If it’s no then don’t sign him.
“You look at the people he’s brought in. They’ve come in to do a job but haven’t been allowed to do it.
“If I’m putting that much money into the football club, I expect them to do their job.
“Lots of owners and chairman, wouldn’t have the same kind of insight as Sharpy and that’s where he’s important.
“Evertonians don’t want to be sat at Norwich, holding a cup of Bovril with their head in their hands, thinking this is a ridiculously long way to come for this. They want to be going to Wembley singing like they used to.
“It’s got to be a long-term project because this is a big job. We’ve got to live up to our motto (Nil Satis Nisi Optimum – Nothing but the best is good enough) but at the moment we’re not.”
