Sam Allardyce has defended his comments questioning the wisdom of Marco Silva’s philosophy after the Everton manager hit out at his predecessor.
The ex-Toffees boss had suggested on talkSPORT that the current Blues manager should consider a more pragmatic approach given his recent run of poor form.
This provoked Silva into a frank retaliation that claimed Big Sam did not care about the club and had done nothing important at Goodison Park.
Speaking on talkSPORT on Monday, Allardyce responded to the Portuguese manager’s comments.
He said: “I don’t expect him to listen to me. I was generalising about Everton overall, I wasn’t having a pop at Marco Silva.
“I was saying that in the end, look at the previous four managers of Everton, including myself – all of them have been dismissed for one reason or another. Marco Silva hasn’t yet, but pressure on him will depend on where they are in the league and winning football matches.
“The press man who asked the question probably didn’t put it how I said it in that interview.”
OPINION
The fact that Silva has been so tetchy in the face of a passing comment from Allardyce probably reveals a lot about where the Toffees manager’s head is at at the moment. He will know that things are not good enough at Goodison Park, and he will know that there is an element of truth in Allardyce’s suggestion that pragmatism might be the best way to go from here on out. If he was confident in his side and his position, surely Big Sam’s evaluation would have been like water off a duck’s back. Instead, he has responded in a manner that suggests that he knows just how much of a predicament he is in. If Silva persists with a style of play that is not yielding results then he is in danger of being given the boot before he has had a chance to properly get his Everton project off the ground, but if he abandons attractive football in favour a pragmatic approach, he will be betraying the philosophy that got him the job in the first place. There could be some difficult decisions to be made on Merseyside.