More talk of Moshiri sacking Allardyce and Walsh from Everton roles

Once again the Mirror is proclaiming loudly that Everton majority shareowner Farhad Moshiri is going to sack Director of Football Steve Walsh and manager Sam Allardyce at the end of this futile season.

Previously the same outlet has said that an agreement is already in place with PSV Eindhoven for their sporting director Marcel Brands to take over for Walsh sooner than later. There was some chatter that Walsh could stay around in a player scouting lead role, but that appears unlikely now as well.

The newspaper goes on to say that Moshiri is planning to leverage his relationship with notorious super-agent Mino Raiola for player recruitment, and this statement should fill Blues with dread. Despite the thoroughbreds in his stable, Raiola is widely known in the world of football as one of the most unscrupulous and dodgy agents in what is already a murky business.

Everton have already been burned by Raiola in the past when we were aspiring to sign Romelu Lukaku to a new deal here just last season. The Italian-born Dutchman had even gone to the extent of assuring then-manager Ronald Koeman that the new contract to keep the Belgian striker at the Blues was ‘99.999999999% done’, before calling it off and masterminding a mega-move to Manchester United in the summer via his other high-profile client Paul Pogba.

Among the footballers represented by Raiola apart from the pair mentioned above are forwards Zlatan Ibrahimovic (LA Galaxy), Henrikh Mkhitaryan (Arsenal), Mario Balotelli (Nice), M’Baye Niang (Torino), Justin Kluivert (Ajax Amsterdam), Moise Kean (Juventus) and Luciano Narsingh (Swansea City), midfielders Marco Verratti (Paris St. Germain), Blaise Matuidi (Juventus), Giacomo Bonaventura (AC Milan), Pajtim Kasami (FC Sion) and goalkeepers Gianluigi Donnarumma (AC Milan) and Sergio Romero (Man Utd) among a host of other lesser-known players.

Not too many of the names there are either available or would be of any real interest for the Blues, so it will be interesting to see what exactly Raiola’s role will be in Everton’s summer dealings. The man is shadier than a total solar eclipse and it is possible Moshiri is unaware of what he is dealing with here. Scandals are rife when talking about Raiola, as a quick Google Search will prove, and we would rather stay away from that drama when things are looking up for the club especially off the field with the developments around a new stadium.