Sam Allardyce has agreed to become Everton's manager, six months after he stepped down at Crystal Palace saying he had "no ambitions to take another job".
Allardyce is set to become the permanent successor to Ronald Koeman after David Unsworth's unsuccessful stint as caretaker. His first match will be at home to Huddersfield Town on Saturday. He has agreed an 18-month deal worth a reported £9m.
He is expected to attend Wednesday evening’s game against West Ham and to be unveiled by the club on Thursday or Friday.
Farhad Moshiri, Everton's majority shareholder, has been quoted on Twitter by Jim White of Talksport as saying: "I really want to give him the support he needs. He can go as far as he wants. We need a strong leader, he gives us that."
The former England manager shocked Palace by quitting on the grounds that he wanted to travel and spend more time with his family. “I simply want to be able to enjoy all the things you cannot really enjoy with the 24/7 demands of managing any football club, let alone one in the Premier League,” he said. The 63-year-old is back in the Premier League with the task of keeping Everton in it.
The former Leicester manager Craig Shakespeare and former Liverpool player and assistant Sammy Lee are expected to be part of the Allardyce ticket.
Allardyce, a former Bolton, Newcastle United, Blackburn and West Ham manager, has never been relegated from the top division and ensured Palace, last season, and Sunderland, the previous season, stayed up after he took over part-way through a campaign. He held talks with Everton earlier this month but those broke down, with Allardyce saying the club “were hesitating that I was the man”.
Everton failed in attempts to take Marco Silva from Watford and were also linked with the Shakhtar Donetsk manager Paulo Fonseca and the Republic of Ireland's Martin O'Neill.
Unsworth and Duncan Ferguson are both expected to be retained on the Everton staff. – Guardian service
