It is set to be a historic few days for Everton Football Club, with new owners set to arrive in the near future. According to multiple reports, including one from BBC Sport, The Friedkin Group are set to purchase Farhad Moshiri’s majority stake of 94% in the Toffees.
This takeover has been a long time coming for the Everton faithful, who have protested against Moshiri countless times in recent seasons. A particularly major protest came in March 2023 thousands of Everton fans lined the streets surrounding Goodison Park.
Now, after years of protests and cries for change at the helm, the historic English club might finally have the takeover that they have cried out for. It will bring about plenty of change at Goodison Park immediately, and the future of manager Sean Dyche is under threat, after a poor start to the season for the Toffees.
Everton’s start to the 2024/25 campaign
It has been an underwhelming opening few weeks to the season for the Merseyside club, to say the least. It is now five games into the 2024/25 campaign and the Toffees are currently languishing in the relegation zone. They sit 19th, with Wolves one place below them and Southampton in 18th on goal difference.
In terms of their record so far this term, Dyche’s men have just one point from their five outings so far, a draw against Leicester City at the King Power Stadium last Saturday. Their other four games have seen them suffer four defeats, including back-to-back 3-2 losses against Bournemouth and Aston Villa. In both games, they were leading 2-0.
Their underlying numbers are also some of the worst in the Premier League, suggesting it is not just sheer unluckiness that they are 19th in the table. As per Understat, the Toffees have conceded 14 goals already this term, the joint worst in the league, and one of only two sides to have conceded more than ten.
To make matters worse, they have found the back of the net just five times themselves, with every one of those strikes coming in their most recent three games. It has been a disastrous start to the campaign.
Goals
5
=17th
Expected goals
6.29xG
17th
Goals conceded
14
1st
Expected goals against
11.86xGA
3rd
Points
1
=20th
Expected points
3.54xP
19th
With all that in mind, it is perhaps unsurprising that Dyche is under pressure, and there is a chance he could be removed from his post by a new board. Freidkin Group will no doubt want immediate results, and with the Englishman failing to deliver those currently, it seems like he could be on the chopping block under new owners.
Who could replace Dyche as manager?
With the former Burnley boss potentially set to leave the club if new owners complete the takeover, it begs the question of who could replace him at the helm at Goodison Park.
A few names have been banded around, and according to i News, former Borussia Dortmund manager Edin Terzic is one option.
The report suggests the 41-year-old German is an option for the new ownership group at Goodison Park, and the manger is ‘understood to covet a Premier League job’ should the opportunity arrive; that chance could come up at Everton.
The German has had a curious career so far; he recently ended his tenure as manager of Dortmund for the second time, after taking the reigns of the German giants in 2020. Football presenter Dougie Critchley suggested he did a “remarkable” job, and it is hard to disagree.
In two seasons at Signal Iduna Park, Terzic guided Dortmund to second in the Bundesliga during his first term, losing the league to Bayern Munich, and the Champions League final last campaign, which they lost to the irresistible Real Madrid.
Prior to taking the hot seat at Dortmund in 2020 and 2022, the 41-year-old was a youth manager and assistant manager at the club, before securing his first roles in senior football. He was the assistant to Slaven Bilic at Besiktas between 2013 and 2015, before following him to West Ham United in 2015 and remaining his assistant until 2017. Terzic’s next role came in 2018 when he returned to Dortmund to become their assistant manager.
It has certainly been a curious career so far for the former West Ham assistant, and it would be fascinating to see how he manages in the top flight of England if he lands the Everton job. His transitional and direct style could well complement some of Everton’s players in the final third.
Which Everton players would benefit from Terzic arriving?
Last season in their impressive Champions League run, the German outfit completed 487 long passes as per FBref, the fourth most in the competition, showing their direct nature. To further illustrate that, see the clip below, where Karim Adeyemi is played in behind with a direct long ball from Mats Hummels before Niclas Fullkrug is slipped in behind from a shorter distance by a pass which directly carves through the Los Blancos defence.
The German might use Dominic Calvert-Lewin in a similar role to how he used Fullkrug last term for Dortmund.
The German striker was used to holding the ball up and dropping deeper, creating space for attackers in behind, and looking to release the ball quickly, something that could work well for the Toffees with the likes of last weekend’s goalscorer Iliman Ndiaye.
Terzic’s Dortmund team last term were a counter-pressing outfit, and whilst this may not work for the Toffees who arguably do not have the same quality as the German side, the ability to construct such a press is there. He may also adapt his side to sit deeper rather than play the higher line he did in Germany, to create a more pragmatic Toffees outfit and look to reduce the number of goals they concede.
This is an Everton side that feels like they are severely underperforming, The Toffees have been one of the poorer sides in the top flight and a change of manager might be what they need. Terzic’s style of play is direct, yet it is a system that still puts an emphasis on technical football and patterns of players rather than kicking the ball upfield and hoping for the best.
It would be a bold move from the Toffees’ potential new owners, but one that could be an inspired choice, and help them climb the Premier League table this term.
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