Marco Silva's fall from grace over the past few months has been quite extraordinary. Once considered to be one of the most exciting and innovative coaches in the Premier League, Silva is now largely viewed as out of touch and tactically naive.
At the time of writing, his Everton side currently sit 16th in the table with a pitiful minus-six goal difference, as speculation surrounding his future continues to circulate.
This woeful start to the season appears even worse when one examines the Toffees' recent transfer outlay.
The club spent well over £100m recruiting the likes of Alex Iwobi, André Gomes and Fabian Delph this summer and although some of this expenditure was offset through the sales of Idrissa Gueye and Ademola Lookman, Everton's net spend was still around £30m.
This liberal approach to recruitment was part of a wider trend of lavish spending that has been exhibited at Goodison Park recently.
During the 2018/2019 season they also went big, paying approximately £90m for the likes of Richarlison, Yerry Mina and Lucas Digne.
The individual performances of these new arrivals has been a mixed bag, as has Silva's management of them.
However, there is one signing, who has not yet been mentioned, that the Everton boss has repeatedly failed to successfully integrate into the team - Moise Kean.
Kean's arrival at Goodison Park in August was treated as a minor miracle - and rightly so.
Silva’s use of Moise Kean is gross misconduct absolutely clueless
— El Pivote (@elpivoteftbl) October 29, 2019
This was a guy who had been thrusted into the void left by Cristiano Ronaldo hamstring injury and shown the mental fortitude to produce a number of eye-catching performances.
Kean was one of the hottest properties in Europe and somehow Silva had convinced him to make the move to northwest England.
Since his arrival though, the former Olympiacos boss' handling of his precocious talent has been arrogant and ill-conceived.
What do you make of the Moise Kean situation? 樂
— On the Banks (@OntheBanksEFC) October 29, 2019
A. He's being unfairly treated and deserves a real go in his natural position
B. He's just not good enough pic.twitter.com/zNDGk9uql5
On the most basic level, Kean simply has not been afforded enough playing time. How is he supposed to develop if he is not on the pitch?
The Italian has only started twice in the league under Silva and twice in the Carabao Cup, a paltry amount for a player who came into the season off the back of a tidal wave of positive momentum.
And who is it keeping him out of the team? Dominic Calvert-Lewin principally, a man who scored six goals in 35 games last season. Corr, what a record that is!
The nadir of Silva's handling of Kean came fairly recently, when he made a string of genuinely bizarre comments in an attempt to justify his strange selection of the 19-year-old in right-wing berth, during the Toffees' Carabao Cup victory over Watford.
“You are talking about a player who played, maybe, seven games in the starting XI last season at Juventus, he played some games as a striker, some games as a winger, when he came in to some games [from the bench] he played many moments as a winger as well. He can play both positions," Silva continued.
Just for clarification Moise Kean played 9 minutes on the wing for Juve last season. He a CF not a Winger
— El Pivote (@elpivoteftbl) October 30, 2019
I know we supposedly live in an era in which we have become de-sensitised to fake news, but even so, some of these comments are ridiculous. Let's break them down.
First, Silva's claims that Kean has played "many, many times as a right-winger" for Italy? Nonsense.
The 19-year-old has three caps for his national team and has been deployed as a striker once and as a left winger on the other two occasions.
This is largely down to Roberto Mancini's desire to operate with just one striker and Ciro Immobile and Fabio Quagliarella simply being in better form than Kean - probably because Silva won't play him.
Oh, and by the way, the former Juventus man's two goals have both come when he's drifted into more central areas, which proves his predatory instincts.
Secondly, Silva tried to dismiss Kean as a bit-part player in Turin, claiming he played just "seven games" for the Old Lady last campaign. Nonsense again.
Kean racked up 17 appearances for Juventus during the 2018/2019 season and by the tail end of the campaign, he had undeniably become an important first team player - only missing one of the club's last 11 league games.
And what position was he deployed at in those games? Exclusively as a striker Mr. Silva.
Here is a broad range of the emotions experienced by Marco Silva during his time at Everton pic.twitter.com/sMoUjQcRpe
— FootballJOE (@FootballJOE) October 26, 2019
The Everton boss' hurried and ill-informed comments are indicative of a manager who is increasingly coming across as naive and arrogant.
This is creating a disconnect with fans and with the Toffees preparing for their trickiest run of fixtures of the season, Silva's days in the Goodison Park hotseat might be numbered.
Source : 90min