Everton are weighing up a move for Steve Hitchen as the club look set to reshape their recruitment department.
Hitchen, it has been confirmed this evening, has left his role as Technical Performance Director with Tottenham Hotspur.
And the 45-year-old has emerged as a candidate to head up the recruitment department at Goodison, after director of football Marcel Brands left the club in early December.
Gretar Steinsson, who was working as Everton’s head of recruitment and development, left soon after.
Everton have been performing a strategic review of their football operations and the ECHO understands they will keep faith with the director of football model.
The club’s power brokers believe Hitchen is a strong candidate to replace Brands but they are, tonight, insisting that the process of finding the right man will continue.
Everton chiefs believe Hitchen has a good record of recruitment and player trading, and believe the £54m signing of Tanguy Ndombele is not indicative of his overall judgement.
It is not yet clear if Everton want another director of football but are, instead, potentially looking at Hitchen to perform a similar role to the one he had at Spurs.