TOMMY BURNS yesterday became the latest addition to Everton's ever-changing managerial short list as their search for a successor to Joe Royle began to border on grand farce.
Two months after Royle's departure and five weeks before the club's senior players report back for pre-season training, Everton are no closer to finding a manager deemed suitable to oversee what will be an expansive and expensive restructuring programme.
Burns's name began to move around Goodison Park yesterday after it became clear that Everton's latest primary target, Martin O'Neill, was to remain with Leicester City.
Although a young man of limitless ambition, O'Neill is not prepared to walk out on the club which he led to success in the English League Cup and is today expected to sign a new contract that will keep him at the club until the Millennium.
As the Everton chairman Peter Johnson began to near the bottom of an increasingly shallow barrel, the former-Celtic manager, Burns, moved into the frame more because of his availability for work than his pedigree.
Burns, 40, acrimoniously parted company with Celtic in April after they had been defeated by Falkirk in the Scottish Cup semi-final.
The bad news for Everton did not end there. Yesterday morning, as if to rub salt into a widening wound, George Graham reiterated that he would be staying with Leeds United. "I intend to finish the job I have started here at Elland Road," he said.
With time and patience fast running out, Johnson may have no alternative but to run the risk of enraging some sections of the Everton faithful by considering the former Liverpool manager Graeme Souness who parted company with Southampton 11 days ago.
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