Would Howe be tempted by Everton approach?

I was at ease a few days ago when Everton were considering the sacking of Sam Allardyce. They are a club that remain in the shadow of Liverpool and really need to re-find the identity that they had back in the Howard Kendall era, when Eddie Howe used to follow them. But now attention might be turning away from Marco Silva to Eddie Howe to replace Allardyce, and I have to wonder would it be a good move for Eddie Howe?

Eddie Howe has been manager at AFCB in his second spell since October 2012.

Just for a moment let's come off our AFCB seat and look at this from the point of view of an up an coming manager that is the longest serving manager at a Premier League club with the chance to manage a top 10 club that has ambitions for European football and more. Now this is also a club that Eddie Howe loved as a boy and became a big fan of by the late 1980s. Merseyside is a football hotbed of fans, and if Howe was to do well at Everton then the England manager's job would be almost nailed on at a later date. 

Now balance that with the thoughts of Howe knows how AFCB runs inside out and he has the freedom to make the calls on most major decisions, if not all of them. Is there much more that he can do at AFCB? And does he like to take risks or is he a one club manager? What would failure at Everton mean for his career? 

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We can only guess what the list might look like on each side of the equation for Howe, but the ultimate question he would ask himself is whether he is happy managing at AFCB and if that is enough for him at the moment? If he were to be approached and turn down the Everton job, then that is something he would have to live with. Would better jobs be likely to pop up in the next few years for him? 

Howe also would have to consider what he felt about the stability of Everton as a club. It is a club that has had five managers (counting David Unsworth twice) since the sacking of Roberto Martinez in June 2016 - just two years ago!  Everton are impatient for success. But for the rescue act that Sam Allardyce did this season they could have finished lower than the Cherries. Is Eddie Howe sure he could get Everton on track to challenge the top six, knowing that the club spent heavily last summer and is perhaps not going to give him the same purse strings as they gave Ronald Koeman?

Whatever conclusion Eddie comes to, there is no better place to be on view than in the Premier League and AFCB fans will know that it will be very difficult to replace the man that has guided them up the divisions to the Premier League and kept them there. Success brings popularity and even if some other managers have higher stock, the mood around the Premier League is that clubs no longer want the old stand-ins that have done it all before and they are willing to give new talent a chance at bigger clubs. Annoyingly for AFCB fans, good English managers are a rare commodity and while AFCB stay in the Premier League, Eddie Howe's stock will continue to grow until he will become a manager that is sought after by the bigger clubs. This may not be the time for Howe to move but we will find it difficult to keep interested parties away from Eddie Howe in the months and years to come unless Eddie makes it his want not to leave the area or the club that has made his name.

What is your all time favourite scoreline?
Clothes2order are running a survey on fans' most popular score. I chose AFC Bournemouth 4 v 3 Liverpool in 2016, but you might have a different game that made you smile even more. You can post your favourite game on the link here and help Clothes2order complete their survey.

In other news, Lewis Cook is only on standby for World Cup England squad