The appointment of Sam Allardyce was never a particularly popular one.
For a club who had pre-season hopes of challenging the traditional top six (perhaps even breaking in) after spending roughly £150 million in the summer, no-one expected the threat of relegation.
So while the appointment of Allardyce to replace Ronald Koeman felt underwhelming, fans were willing to accept that they needed a ‘firefighter'.
And who better than Allardyce for a job like that, a manager that masterminded brilliant relegation escapes with the likes of Sunderland and Crystal Palace.
However, it did not take long for Everton to distance themselves from the threat of relegation, which Allardyce certainly deserves some credit for. But with that came a change in expectation, a change that Allardyce has not kept up with.
At this stage, it would be best for both the club and Allardyce himself to part ways. Here are the reasons why:
His relationship with fans beyond repair
Sam Allardyce’s arrival saw an improvement in form at Everton at the beginning but recent results have been far from impressive. More on the team’s results later: that is not the only reason fans have been left unimpressed with Allardyce’s reign.
Allardyce's comments in press conferences have not endeared him to the Goodison crowd. He recently brushed off criticism of his management as simply coming from a “small minority” of social media fans. When asked about his critics, he responded with “where are the doubters?”
Social media may have a tendency to blow criticism out of proportion but to dismiss any and all doubts as simply irrelevant does nothing to improve a fan-manager relationship that was never particularly fruitful.