Results lately have not been the best for Marco Silva and his Everton side. The Toffees have had to struggle for form which has led to clamour for the manager, Marco Silva to be shown the exit door.
The club owner have however still shown faith in him, for the time being. How long this faith will last is a question of performance over time. With eight more games to the end of the premier league season, the future of the Portuguese manager is still in the air.
To dowse the tension amongst the section of the fans who want him gone, getting a win in their next game
will play an important role. They host Chelsea at Goodison Park on Sunday and a win for them could easily end all the speculation about his future.
The idea about giving Silva the job was to bring in a young attacking manager that believes in young talent and promote them from the youth system. This was as a result of his stellar performance at Watford that made Everton snap him after he was sacked at Vicarage road.
Less than a year on the job, he is feeling the heat of managing a side that demand more from you. Not just the club owners but the fans also sometimes with different type of demands. Fans of Everton have turn on their managers for not playing attacking football despite winning – Sam Allardyce can explain better.
Marco Silva is however playing the kind of football the fans want but not winning games. Two side of the coin that fans can flip to without looking back. The job is left for the manager to always live up to the expectation of the job at hand.
Everton are not expected to be losing games to teams like Millwall or Newcastle United with the squad they have. The good news is that there is a great opportunity for Everton and Silva to stake a claim on the race in the top four and title challenge even if they can finish there.
The game against Chelsea is one of three against the top six sides they have to play. How they navigate these games can help Silva secure is job or lose it before it gets to the end of the season. They drew the Blues to a goalless stalemate in the first leg of this encounter and will be hoping to repeat that or better it by getting the maximum points.
It will not be far fetch if the fans start chanting his name when he get his team firing again. They have the squad decent enough to get goal or two when they play Chelsea and they just have to play to their strength. The momentum they maintain in that game will determine how they face the other top teams they have left.
Games against Arsenal on the 7th of April and Tottenham on the last day of the season will have a great deal in determining who finish in the top four same as how their draw against bitter rivals, Liverpool, was the reason the Reds are second on the league table behind Manchester City.
So Silva has a great opportunity with these set of games to imprint his name in the heart of the Everton fans.
It will definitely not be an easy task defeating these big teams but he has a fair chance against the other teams they have left but he will not get the chance to play them if his team fumbles against Chelsea this weekend.
There is still a very good chance of finishing in the top eight and the earlier he realise this and take advantage of it, the longer he will have his job secure at the dug out at Goodison park.