Former WBC cruiserweight champion Tony Bellew has demanded that Everton do not appoint Shanghai SIPG boss Vitor Pereira as Marco Silva’s successor.
Silva was fired on Thursday night following the 5-2 Merseyside Derby defeat to Liverpool, with the result seeing that the club slipped inside the Premier League relegation places having taken 14 points from 15 games under the Portuguese.
The club added in the announcement of Silva’s dismissal that they would be working swiftly on appointing a new manager, and reports on Friday suggested talks were set to start with Pereira over taking charge at Goodison Park.
Pereira was claimed to be one of four names the club were considering, with the 51-year-old willing to consider an offer from Everton having discussed a move to Chelsea in the summer, only for the South West London side to be put off by his £30million-per-year contract with Shanghai SIPG.
Arsenal and Watford are also thought to have reached out to the Portuguese more recently as they search for their next managers, having fired Unai Emery and Quique Sanchez Flores respectively in the last few weeks.
Bellew, though, hopes we do not appoint Pereira as Silva’s successor, as the retired boxer and Everton fan fears his lack of Premier League experience could do more harm than it would heal.
Would Pereira be a suitable Silva successor?
Yes
No
“You can’t be bringing in someone who has done something in Portugal but has never tasted the Premier League,” Bellow said, while speaking as a pundit on talkSPORT.
“You can’t be taking a risk at this point and you can’t be taking on people who have got no Premier League experience. The last thing we need to do is have an experiment with Everton with the position we’re in at the moment.”
Pereira has been managing in China since December 2017 and led Shanghai SIPG to a third-place finish in the Chinese Super League last season.
Prior to his move to the Far East, the 51-year-old had spells with 1860 Munich, Fenerbahce, Olympiacos and FC Porto, while winning league titles Porto, Olympiacos and Shanghai.
Asked who he would like to see the club appoint as Silva’s successor, Bellew has his eyes of landing a ‘big name’ manager, but concedes that our current situation does not make the job as appealing as it could be.
“I’m a dreamer so I want the big names,” he added, “The likes of Pochettino and Simeone, every Everton fan wants these people. It’s been bandied about that we’ve got the money, so I’m a dreamer.
“But we’ve got to be realistic, we’ve got to stop being dreamers and saying we’re billionaires because, realistically, who is going to touch Everton in the position we’re in?”
In other Everton news, fans have been reacting after a currently unemployed head coach admitted to being keen on replacing Silva.