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Kevin Thelwell leads 120-point plan at Everton as 26 staff changes made at Finch Farm
Kevin Thelwell is approaching his one-year anniversary at Everton and the director of football has already made some sizeable changes to the running of the club.
After replacing Rafa Benitez with Frank Lampard in January, Everton followed up his appointment by hiring Thelwell as the club’s new director of football.
The 49-year-old had previous experience at Wolves and prior to that was a football coach and academy manager at a number of other clubs. Tasked with managing the Everton rebuild, Thelwell got to work straight away.
As reported by the Liverpool Echo, Thelwell is overseeing a “120-point plan” at the club, which is already approaching the 12-month mark.
Having been at the club just 10 months, Thelwell has given the green light for 26 new staff members to join the club, with new appointments at academy director, loan pathway manager and head of sports science positions.
Radical changes
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Thelwell didn’t waste any time before getting to work at Everton, and it’s exactly what the club needed. For too long, the Toffees have lacked direction off the pitch.
Numerous managers were appointed – all with different philosophies – and as a result the club’s transfer business over the last five years has resulted in a squad that is void of a clear playing style.
The club clearly feel confident in Lampard’s ability to lead this overhaul and so far his signings have shown promise. Amadou Onana, James Tarkowski and Conor Coady have all proved to be fantastic additions from the summer.
Thelwell certainly had a part to play in the summer’s transfer strategy, and he’ll be working closely with Lampard to identify new targets to improve the squad next month.
With Thelwell taking care of staff appointments and off-field business, it frees up Lampard to focus solely on results and performances on the pitch.
The change of hierarchy has shown signs of promise, but it all means nothing if they aren’t able to navigate their biggest challenge this season – survival.