Sacking of Rafael Benítez has given billionaire owner a clean slate to make structural changes but staying up is the priority

When announcing the departure of Marcel Brands as director of
Football on 5 December Everton revealed that: “a strategic review of the football structure will now take place which will inform the best model for the club to proceed with in the long-term.” A clean slate to implement the findings has materialised at a most inopportune moment but Farhad Moshiri must capitalise all the same.
As the threat of a relegation fight grows increasingly real at Goodison Park Everton find themselves lacking not only consensus among the hierarchy, a clear football plan and sufficient character within the dressing room. They also have no director of football following the exit of Brands, eight months after he signed a lucrative three-year contract, no head of recruitment and development nor a manager of scouting and operations after the previous incumbents, Gretar Steinsson and Dan Purdy respectively, decided to leave with the Dutchman.