As Kevin Thelwell’s role as Director of Football comes under intense scrutiny rumours abound he will be released when his contract expires in the summer.
Thelwell splits opinion among Everton fans. On one hand he worked under severe financial constraints and a lunatic owner who was absent most of the time, only diving in to make ridiculous and damaging decisions on occasion. With that backdrop he did sign some good players on a budget. Iliman Ndiaye is looking like the best of the lot but James Garner, Oriel Mangala Dwight McNeil and Amadou Onana have been successes of varying degrees.
On the other hand the disastrous striker signings of Beto and Broja have left Everton worryingly short up front. His inability to bring in competent full backs and bizarre obession with Wilfried Gnonto have been black marks on his record.
Yet he has also worked wonders behind the scenes, slowly rebuilding Everton’s poor youth academy and youth recruitment and updated analytics and scout departments on a tiny budget.
While he clearly worked well with Frank Lampard, his clear clash with Sean Dyche led to many of his signings not being played and a clear disconnect between the more modern style of u21 and u18 teams and the archaic, ineffective and downright embarrassing football of the first team. Even more stark was the disconnect between Thelwell’s teams and Dyche’s inner circle of Ian Woan, Steve Stone and Billy Mercer, to the point where it seemed Everton had two very distinct football management teams battling for control of the club.
One thing is certain. Farhad Moshiri and Everton have been doing the Director of Football thing completely wrong.
What does a Director of Football do?
Employing a Director of Football is a popular thing for modern-thinking football clubs to do but so many get it wrong. Outside of Everton, West Ham famously appointed Tim Steidten above David Moyes as football director. They quickly fell out, with Steidten banned from the dressing room. Moyes’ departure was seen as a win for Steidten but he now looks like losing his job as flop signings and poor form have turned the fans against him.
In fact, hiring a Director of Football after a managerial appointment rarely works unless both are completely aligned in both football philosophy and working relationship.
At Manchester City it clearly works because Pep Guardiola and Txiki Begiristain essentially work as part of the same team, with the same values. There is complete trust and alignment in what they do and that means the Director of Football is trusted to oversee the football side completely. However, this is so rare in football that it feels almost like bottling lightning. Instead, clubs should look at a different model in order to prevent the mess seen at Everton over the last two years.
At Liverpool under Klopp there was a different way of working. Klopp ran the football side ruthlessly almost without a Director of Football. Anybody in the top role was essentially a mix of glorified scout, providing players for Klopp to cast his eye over, and a technical director, helped to innovate the club’s academy and coaching teams but all within the remit of supporting the manager and bringing that philosophy throughout the club.
The crucial difference is between a Director of Football, who actively runs all football departments, and a Technical Director, who while being senior, is an administrator helping to oil the wheels of the club’s football departments.
What about a Technical Director?
The fact is Everton probably do not need a Director of Football. Moyes is a hands on manager and has shown a willingness to tap into Everton’s analytics department, work with a head of recruitment and bring through younger players when he feels they are ready.
He is not a modern coach but he is much more collaborative than Dyche, who locked down his inner circle and refused to even budge on taking advice on set pieces.
That means Everton do not need an all-seeing football expert to run every matter of the first team. What Everton needs is a Technical Director to continue the promising work under Thelwell in the other areas of the club while Moyes manages the first team departments.
Crucially Everton need to have a Head of Recruitment that runs the recruitment side who can work for the manager and be managed by the Technical Director.
According to Dan Ashworth, former FA, Brighton, Newcastle and Manchester United Technical Director, the role is less as a manager and more as somebody who helps to connect each department in the football club and ensure the agreed club’s philosophy runs through all of them.
He explained to the Coaches Voice: “My role is to oversee the football side of the club and connect the different departments. I’m at the centre of the wheel, connecting the seven football ‘bubbles’ at the end of the spokes.
“Those seven departments are: Graham Potter, the manager; Hope Powell, the women’s first-team manager; Paul Winstanley, head of recruitment and analysis; David Weir, the loans manager; John Morling, who is academy manager; Adam Brett, who heads up medical and sports science; and James Bell and Cara Lea Moseley, who are in charge of psychology and mental wellbeing.”
Key to this is agreeing a philosophy with the manager at the very beginning. At Brighton he explains a key part was defenders who can pass out from the back, while another was to have the recruitment team target younger players with the explicit agreement the manager would play them often. On the flip side, Potter was given more leeway with results if he was seen to be doing this.
At Everton that may be different. The philosophy can be built around technical excellence but also mentality, something Moyes has often spoken about. Interestingly, it does not mean playing the same formation and even style of football throughout the club.
Ashworth says: “Let’s say that the first team plays 4-3-3, but the best two players in the Under-18s are centre-forwards, or the best three are centre-backs. If you’re set on playing 4-3-3, then you get players who are out of position or not playing at all.
“We believe in giving our players the best possible chance, and that means playing them in the position where they are most likely to end up. There has to be tactical flexibility at all stages, even if we make sure we stick to two or three core principles.”
The role of the Technical Director is strategic. While Moyes is looking at players who will win games now, he must have an eye on the long term strategy of the club and ensuring the pipeline of talent is there to win games 5, 10 and 15 years down the line.
What Everton do not need is to employ somebody who wants to have a lifesize Football Manager game with the club. Who wants to run recruitment and buy players they like because they believe they have some idea of football tactics.
Your Head of Recruitment should manage recruitment. A Director of Football with the ego to try to micromanage it themselves is not a good Director of Football. A manager who tries to do it themselves is not a good manager.
Kevin Thelwell arrived at Everton with a thesis on the joys of wing backs. He famously loved the system and went straight out and brought in Ruben Vinagre, a left wing back who couldn’t play in a four at the back system. After a couple of games Lampard realised the system did not work and Vinagre was left out in the cold.
Likewise Arnout Danjuma was brought in as a winger with flair and an eye for goal, just six months after the club appointed Sean Dyche, a man who would simply never play somebody who did not do the required defensive work.
Under Dyche, Thelwell brought in a talented Iliman Ndiaye, who could run with the ball and beat his man. Only for Dyche to play ultra-defensive football hoofing it up to a lone target man. In this case Thelwell was clearly trying to do what he thought was right for the club – but Everton will never move forward if the manager and Director of Football are so at odds with each other over what consititutes a good player.
Everton need two things.
The first is a Technical Director tasked with aligning all departments of the club and innovating each area. Modernising and improving the club at every turn.
The second is full agreement with David Moyes on a club philosophy. The Technical Director, Head of Recruitment and Academy Scouts need to know the key DNA points that the club wants. Once agreed the Technical Director needs to be the administrator that allows the club to move forward. David Moyes is the man who leads the first team with those DNA principles in mind.
If either begins to move away from these principles then the Friedkins will need to act. A Sporting Director across the group, Roma and Everton, could be the decision maker here. Both Moyes and a Technical Director will know they need to work together or they will be sacked.
It is the only way Everton can move forward as a club. The worst thing the Friedkins could do is renew Thelwell’s contract or appoint a new Director of Football with the remit to control every aspect of the footballing and recruitment side, only to see a clash with Moyes and two camps set up with opposing views.
Instead let’s make an appointment that works with Moyes and helps to support a vision for the club that lasts beyond individual appointments. A knowledgeable administrator with an eye for talent and the organisational skills to improve all aspects of the club while supplying the manager with exactly what he needs to do the most important aspect; get wins out on the pitch.
That could be Dan Ashworth. It could be David Weir. It could be somebody else entirely. But it will be the most important appointment Everton make in a generation.