After 37 days without a manager, Everton have finally settled on a new boss: Sam Allardyce is in the final stages of finalizing terms with the club and will be named the next Toffees manager in the next 24 to 48 hours.
[ MORE: Pardew named new West Brom boss ]
Everton made the announcement on Wednesday, hours before the scheduled kickoff of their Premier League clash with fellow strugglers West Ham United (Watch live, 3 p.m. ET, on NBC Sports Gold) at Goodison Park. The Toffees, who fired Ronald Koeman on Oct. 23 and have been led by interim boss David Unsworth ever since, enter the unlikely relegation battle in 17th place; West Ham sit 18th. Unsworth, who has amassed a record of 1W-1D-2L in the PL, will remain in charge against the Hammers.
In the days following Koeman’s departure, Allardyce was quick to withdraw his name from consideration for the job, but as Everton grew more and more desperate — after failing to land Burnley’s Sean Dyche or Watford’s Marco Silva, among others perhaps — owner Farhad Moshiri returned to one of the more obvious candidates this week as it became more and more apparent that the club must quickly pick itself or face a genuine relegation fight between now and May.
Allardyce has long been lauded a master battler of relegation, but two questions come to mind when considering that reputation: 1) how did it get this bad, that a relegation specialist is required; and, more importantly, 2) assuming Allardyce keeps them up, is he the one to rebuild this thing from the ground up starting in May?
