MARCEL BRANDS: I “moved heaven and earth” to bring former Everton great back to Goodison Park. summed up the damaging chaos of Farhad Moshiri’s tenure.

 

The disclosure by Marcel Brands that he attempted to hire Mikel Arteta as Everton manager summed up the devastating turmoil at the club’s top that has marred Farhad Moshiri’s reign.

Brands was the second of Moshiri’s three football directors, serving from May 2018 until December 2021, leaving barely eight months after signing a new deal that would have run until this summer. When challenged by an enraged fan who inquired: “Did you recruit them?,” following a 4-1 home defeat to Liverpool as visiting supporters mocked their hosts by singing the name of their former gaffer Rafael Benitez, whose short but not-so-sweet tenure as Blues boss ended the following month, the Dutchman left with the cryptic parting shot of: “Is it only the players?”

Now in his second spell with PSV Eindhoven, where he worked before his tenure on Merseyside, Brands claims he “moved heaven and earth” to get former Everton midfielder Arteta back to Goodison Park as Marco Silva’s replacement in December 2019. The 62-year-old stated of his courtship of the Spaniard, who eventually left his role as Manchester City assistant to return to Arsenal: “I spent the entire evening at his house and I saw him as the ideal man for us.”

If you ever needed an illustration of the dysfunctional factionalism that existed within Goodison Park’s corridors of power during Moshiri’s tenure at Everton, this was it. Former long-serving Blues manager David Moyes has spoken out about this period, with the Scot, who previously led Everton for nearly 11 years from 2002 to 2013, also in talks for the job.

Moyes, like Nuno Espirito Santo when he applied for the position in 2021, was far from the only person who came out of a conversation with Moshiri thinking one thing, only for something else to happen, as he said in September:

“When I was being offered the West Ham job, I had actually been in Germany with Farhad Moshiri to take the Everton job. The phone rang, and it was David Sullivan – in the middle of the meeting with Everton.

“I had to say, ‘I can’t speak just now’. But Carlo Ancelotti was sacked by Napoli that night, and they changed tack, even though I was due to sign the day before – I had told David.

“But the next day Everton didn’t make more contact, so I phoned David and said, ‘If it’s still there’, and it couldn’t have gone better – it was the right choice.”

Although Moyes admits to having meetings with Moshiri, the ECHO understands that he was chosen by Bill Kenwright, the man who employed him the first time roughly 22 years ago when he invented the slogan “People’s Club.”. So there you had Kenwright, characteristically wearing his heart on his sleeve and pining for a proven ‘Blue Blood’ in the dugout again, with the late chairman also hoping David Unsworth and Duncan Ferguson would prove their worth during caretaker stints.

Brands, as we’ve heard, desired a modern, cosmopolitan, technical coach, but Moshiri had the final word and sought for the stars. In the Monaco-based businessman’s defense, getting a manager with Ancelotti’s stellar CV was a major coup, and Everton were fortunate that their paths crossed just before the Italian, who had won trophies in all of Europe’s ‘Big Five’ leagues, fell victim to the capricious nature of Napoli owner Aurelio De Laurentiis, who had threatened to sell the club’s entire squad the previous month.

While the Neapolitans’ maverick president may share Moshiri’s twitchy trigger finger, he has revived the club, having bought them when they were in Serie C and steered them to their first Scudetto since Diego Maradona’s days in 2022/23, whereas Everton’s owner’s profligacy has only resulted in the worst-performing seasons in their entire history on the pitch and a second PSR charge following their points deduction off it.

Fate decreed that the majority of Ancelotti’s reign was played behind closed doors, and with the Blues still fighting for Premier League survival, his tenure has the strange feel of a coronavirus-induced dream, with star signing James Rodriguez never even getting to play in front of a Goodison Park crowd. Ancelotti signed a four-and-a-half-year contract with Everton after being offered a generous salary commensurate with his status, but his hopes of being the man to lead them into their new stadium were dashed when he was poached by one of his many previous employers, Real Madrid, reportedly after calling them to inquire about potential players.

Is it any wonder? A long-term contract and a seemingly relaxed demeanour as he strolled around local haunts as diverse as Crosby Beach and Bootle’s New Strand Shopping Centre – he was the first Everton manager this century to live in Merseyside – gave the impression that Ancelotti was at ease in his surroundings, but in reality, he was another nomad like Ronald Koeman. The Dutchman was Moshiri’s first big name to compete with Jurgen Klopp, Pep Guardiola, and Jose Mourinho in England’s north-west.

Perhaps the pandemic that robbed Ancelotti of more opportunities to sample the atmosphere of ‘The Grand Old Lady’ and a burglary at his house, which left Ancelotti’s teenage daughter screaming when she discovered masked men who stole jewellery and a safe, did not help. However, over his long coaching career, other than his time in charge of AC Milan, where he also enjoyed the most-successful spell of his own playing days, he had never stayed in a post for longer than two seasons.

Many Blues were taken aback by Ancelotti’s cool, calm, and collected demeanour at the time, blowing on his cup of tea as those around him on the Goodison touchline celebrated wildly following Bernard’s extra-time winner in the 5-4 FA Cup victory over Tottenham Hotspur, but perhaps he wasn’t bothered? Also, given the severe budget cuts that Everton will face in the summer of 2021 after Ancelotti’s departure, with Benitez spending only £1.7 million on Demarai Gray and bringing in free transfers Andros Townsend, Asmir Begovic, and Salomon Rondon, did he realise the writing was on the wall in terms of having to cut the budget?

Ironically, if he hadn’t been the great Carlo Ancelotti, he would have faced major concerns about how the 2020/21 season ended, with Everton falling from second place on Boxing Day to finishing 10th and losing out on Europe. However, back in his natural habitat of massaging the egos of galacticos and into his third season with a club other than Milan for the first time, the now 64-year-old has won a maiden La Liga title, another Copa del Rey, and a record-breaking fourth Champions League, demonstrating that, unlike his Goodison successor Benitez, who was fired from Celta Vigo earlier this month following his failures on Merseyside and in China, he is not a busted flush.

 

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