Do statistics lie?

I spotted a stat in yesterday's paper that surprised me. It said "If Everton beat Norwich" (I know, they lost but bear with me) "Marco Silva will have the highest win percentage of any Everton manager since the club last won the title in 1987". But for that clueless, spineless, passionless shambles, Silva would have had an Everton career to date win percentage of 43.1%. What does that compare with?

Howard Kendall had a win rate of 54.1% in his first spell which lasted from 1981to 1987. This was only the second time that an Everton manager in charge for more than one game achieved a figure over 50%. The other was Dick Molyneux in 1889-1901. Kendall is therefore head and shoulders above even the other great Everton manager of my lifetime, Harry Catterick, whose win rate between 1961 and 1973 was 46.5%, though Everton and Catterick were on the slide for some time at the end of that period and he would have had to step aside much sooner in the modern game. Otherwise, Silva's performance is at least par for the course when Everton are going ok:

Roberto Martinez, 2013-16; 42.9%
Colin Harvey, 1987-1990, 42.4%
David Moyes, 2002-2013, 42.1%
Ronald Koeman, 2016-17, 41.4%
Joe Royle, 1994-97, 39.0%
Howard Kendall, 1990-1993, 38.9%
Sam Allardyce, 2017-18, 38.5%

When things are really bad the figure is much worse:
Walter Smith 1998-2002, 32.4%
Howard Kendall , 1997-98, 26.2%
Mike Walker, 1994, 17.1%

And yet, I was still shocked to see Silva so high on that list. Ah, but Everton's current trajectory is worrying, isn't it? It's disappointing after the investment that has been made in the team, but the Premier League form table over the last 6 games has Everton in mid-table at 11th, with 2 wins and a draw from the last 6 games.

As always the mid-table is very congested: one more win and Everton would have been ahead of Manchester United in the top half. I know, being ahead of Man U doesn't say much at the moment, but surely it would be hasty to go with the Goodison crowd: many Everton fans joined in with the visitors when they sang  "you're getting sacked in the morning.."

There are two ways of looking at this. One is that Silva's performance is entirely typical for a decent manager at Everton, chopping and changing never does any good, better to give him more time. The other is that the players currently look flat and disorganised, bereft of any ideas or sparkle and generally lacking in any passion or fight.

From my perspective I've always been a Silva sceptic. I saw nothing in his record at Hull or Watford to make me believe he was a top manager in prospect. I know football has changed and modern managers have to be empathetic coaches rather than hair dryer disciplinarians. But Silva's personality seems feeble and, unless the players can understand what he's getting at better than I do watching his interviews, no wonder they seem to be lacking in direction.

The questions I expect Everton's board will be debating are who should replace Silva and when to make the change. Everton's upcoming fixture list is terrifying: Leicester away, Liverpool away, Chelsea home and Man United away. After that there is a home Haribo Cup quarter final against Leicester and then Arsenal at home. The last of these would traditionally be viewed as a hard fixture but this is probably the least scary Arsenal team in 3 decades. However, by then, Arsenal might well have changed their manager.

There is a case for not subjecting a new manager to that fixture list, risking condemning him to a poor start. And if Everton were to scrape a draw in the derby and win their quarter final, things might start to feel better for a while.

But also there is also a case for getting your man when you can. That is if they have a man lined up. Who are the candidates?

The outstanding available candidate is Max Allegri who Juve decided to ditch after he'd won them four consecutive Italian league and cup doubles without cracking the Champions League. He is apparently learning English but would probably wait for Manchester United to come up, if Arsenal don't bag him now. Mauricio Pocchettino might also sound fanciful but it doesn't look like he's going to Real Madrid or Man United anytime soon. If you think back to 2014 when he went to Spurs, Everton had just finished 5th - ahead of Spurs, as they tended to be then. It would be another Spurs type project (including a new stadium project!) but maybe that's is all Poch can hope for. For most of the time at Spurs he did well and he would be a good bet if Everton could get him.

More prosaically there is Sean Dyche, whose Burnley team nearly always look organised and committed. But I've come to the view that, while David Moyes was as pragmatic as necessary, his heart was in trying to play football - how could you say otherwise when his team evolved to a midfield containing Mikel Arteta, Steven Pienaar and Leon Osman? I'm not sure Dyche is like that and I've gone cold on the idea of him at Everton.

Eddie Howe may never get the chance of a top job, unless he waits for England after Gareth Southgate. He might view Everton as a route forward for his career. His teams are organised and do play with passion. Everton took a risk with David Moyes in 2002 and it worked well. Howe is far more experienced than Moyes was and shouldn't represent as big a risk. But is he, as Bill Kenwright saw in Moyes, a winner? Howe is a maybe. I'm sceptical but not as sceptical as I was about Silva.

The other obvious thing to do is bring back Moyes. That feels like a backwards step to me now, only to be done if there is no other attractive option. The bookies fancy Mark Hughes - not me. And of course there is a top, Champions League winning manager who lives a short car journey from Goodison: Rafa Benitez, who I've said before I would love to see at Goodison. Surely the Liverpool connection is long enough ago now?

If Rafa would come I'd take him every time, even though Everton did manage to finish ahead of his Liverpool team in 2005. If not, Poch, then Howe would be my choices. And then Moyes if none of them can be landed.

The statistics say that it doesn't matter too much who the Everton manager is, unless they are useless the win percentage will be about 40. But damn the statistics, they have no heart and I can't stand much more of this clueless football from my team!