Everton offered Watford a compensation package of £8.5million for manager Marco Silva on Monday morning, according to the Times.
The newspaper claim that the Merseyside giants contacted the Vicarage Road outfit after making the 40-year-old their No1 choice in the latest twist in their search for a replacement for Ronald Koeman.
The Times report that “a pile of money” amounting to £8.5million was offered to Watford in the hope that they would release Marco Silva but he does not have a release clause in the two-year contract he signed in May and “predictably, they said no”.
It is said Silva is open to talks with Everton but any chance of sealing a deal is unlikely unless Silva kicks up a fuss with the the club’s Italian owners or an offer is made far in excess of £8.5million.
OPINION
It is a curiosity that clubs happily pay tens of millions for players but try to secure managers on the relative cheap, when all the evidence is that the man in the dugout is the most important at the club. It is he who chooses the players, picks the team, creates the playing style, devises the tactics and makes all manner of technical decisions on an hourly basis. It is his neck on the block when everything goes wrong. Everton’s offer of £8.5million for Silva appears a staggeringly high one, until you consider that Premier League survival alone is worth £100million, and that the club spend £140million on new players in the summer only to find themselves desperately trying to avoid a relegation battle. Top managers are worth their weight in gold. If Everton believe Silva to be the next Mauricio Pochettino, then they should pay what it takes to get him