Sam Allardyce targets Europa League qualification to end doubts about his Everton future
Sam Allardyce hopes he can end doubts about his long-term future at Everton by guiding the club to what once seemed an unlikely European spot before the end of the season.
After struggling to avoid the scrap towards the bottom before Christmas, Everton are just two points from 7th. Should the FA Cup be won by a side in the Champions League next season, that will be enough to reach the Europa League.
Allardyce is cautious about such prospects, but acknowledged the possibilities.
“I've noticed that but when we get into the position of the last five or six games and then we can get better assessment of what can happen,” he said.
“Already in my time we've seen the highs and lows, which happens in the Premier League, and so when get to the final five-six games can there be an opportunity of pushing to get that final European place? When we get into the single figures then you can look at where we are in the league and what can achieve.
“You can't turn a European place down no matter who you are and where you are. You have plan to deal with it. Everton have definitely suffered this year because of it, like all teams suffer.
“When clubs get into Europe and they haven't been in there on a regular basis then all suffer. Chelsea have suffered this year. They weren't in Champions' League last year and won the league, but now look at them this year – and that's Chelsea.
“If we get it next season there won't be as big a problem. We can plan better with what happens. This season we had all the new players and all the change around the new players. Add to that the loss of Lukaku, all the goals he scored and not replacing him with a proven goalscorer. It was obviously a great difficulty in the beginning, and then a leaky defence. So I do think if we did get there we'd have to plan a lot better and we'd have to have two teams to cope.”
Everton’s opponents on Saturday are a reminder of how close Allardyce was to missing out on the Goodison job, the fall-out from the Marco Silva affair adding edge to the fixture.
With Silva back on the market, Allardyce could do with a promising last few months to ensure his board do not reconsider the Portuguese coach.
“What we do with the football team will ultimately decide how long I stay,” he said.
“That boils down to improving the players we've already got, which we think we have already done, improving them even further next season and what do we change next season for the season after that?
“It is not a short-term fix.”
