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Ex-Lyon coach Jean-Luc Vasseur is Everton's preferred choice as new manager

Coach of Lyon Jean-Luc Vasseur and captain Wendie Renard of Lyon celebrate the victory at final whistle after winning the penalty shootout following the women's french cup final match between Paris Saint Germain (PSG) and Olympique Lyonnais (Lyon, OL) at Stade de l'Abbe Deschamps on August 9, 2020 in Auxerre, Franc
Coach of Lyon Jean-Luc Vasseur and captain Wendie Renard of Lyon celebrate the victory at final whistle after winning the penalty shootout following the women's french cup final match between Paris Saint Germain (PSG) and Olympique Lyonnais (Lyon, OL) at Stade de l'Abbe Deschamps on August 9, 2020 in Auxerre, Franc

Former Lyon head coach Jean-Luc Vasseur is Everton's preferred candidate to replace Willie Kirk as manager of the Women’s Super League side, Telegraph Sport understands, although an agreement for the Frenchman to take charge has not yet been finalised.

The 2019-20 Uefa Women’s Coach of the Year Vasseur, 52, led Lyon to a treble of major honours in 2020, including the Women’s Champions League. He has been without a club since being sacked by Europe's most successful women’s side in April.

The Merseyside club are hoping to make a relatively swift appointment after parting company with Scottish coach Kirk on Saturday, following Wednesday’s 5-1 loss to Manchester City in the League Cup.

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Sources say an announcement is unlikely to come this week, because a deal is not quite done, but there is hope that Vasseur can be in charge in time to prepare the team for Everton’s next game away at Leicester City in the League Cup on November 3.

Everton finished fifth in the WSL last season, after reaching 2020’s Women's FA Cup final under Kirk, who had been in charge since December 2018 when they were bottom of the table.

The club have ambitions to be challenging in the top three and qualifying for Europe, and Vasseur, a coach who has lifted the Women’s Champions League trophy, is seen as somebody with the pedigree and experience to take the team forward.

They made nine new signings this summer, including breaking their club transfer record to sign 18-year-old Sweden midfielder Hanna Bennison, who was labelled last year as the best young footballer in the world, but they are currently nine points behind WSL leaders Arsenal after five games.

In his playing career, former midfielder Vasseur had spells at French clubs including Paris Saint-Germain and Rennes. His coaching career began at PSG and he has managed in the men’s game with Reims, Paris FC and Chateauroux.

Pressure for instant success in WSL starting to mirror the male game

Willie Kirk’s sacking by Everton - who were rock bottom of the Women’s Super League when he took over in December 2018 - feels like one of the harshest in the WSL era.

Yet perhaps it is symbolic of a culture shift in the women’s game, as the sport increasingly starts to mirror the male game.

For many years, compared to the notoriously ruthless environment for managers in the men’s Premier League and EFL, women’s football felt like a somewhat kinder place, where clubs didn’t tend to make knee-jerk decisions and where managers were given more time to turn bad runs of form around with hard work on the training ground.

Not so in 2021 it would seem, as the increased professionalisation and the enhanced financial investments in the WSL inevitably lead to greater pressure for immediate results on the pitch.

On the one hand, Everton’s ambition as a football club is admirable. And they have backed the manager with nine new signings this summer, including breaking their club transfer record to sign 18-year-old Sweden midfielder Hanna Bennison, who was labelled last year as the best young footballer in the world.

Kirk himself was bullish about their intentions before the start of the season, while also acknowledging it would be difficult. But the club's owners believe they should be mixing it with the top sides and improving on their fifth-placed finish from last season - they not only want to break into the top three, but they want to be winning silverware.

However, such targets are not going to be achieved overnight, especially when such a dominant top three - Arsenal, Chelsea and Manchester City - have completely locked out the WSL’s top three spots since 2015. And they have won every single major piece of domestic silverware in that time too.

The top three all have vast budgets and crucially vast amounts of time together as a core group of players, competing at the top level. As Chelsea manager Emma Hayes said after her side beat Everton 4-0 on September 12: "People are mad to think they are just going to win leagues [straight away]. We [Chelsea] have been together for 10 years, it takes time to build. Everyone needs to be calm and patient with Everton, they’re going to be a good side."

For Kirk, it’s results like that one that have ultimately led to his departure. His side’s early-season fixture list was tough, pitting them against the ‘top three’ inside the first five games, and they lost comprehensively to all three of them as well as losing 5-1 to Manchester City in the League Cup on Wednesday. They have six points from their first five WSL matches, sitting eighth.

But it should be argued that the Merseyside club’s swathe of new signings needed more time to settle and gel together under Kirk’s system. Five league matches into a season is an unreasonable time to part company with any manager, but it speaks of Everton’s expectation for urgent success.

Leading Everton to 2020’s Women’s FA Cup final at Wembley - the club’s first final in six years - appears not to have granted the 43 year-old any extra time to get results against the top three, nor have his side’s reliable displays against the rest of the division. After all, they’ve not lost to anybody outside of Arsenal, Chelsea, Man City or Man Utd since before the pandemic began, and they beat Chelsea at Goodison Park en route to last term’s cup final.

The former Hibernian and Bristol City manager’s stock is high, and suitors will no doubt come calling for him with another top job soon, but his exit will serve as a warning to others across the landscape of women’s football: New television deals, extra sponsors and extra expectations mean this world is becoming more merciless.

There are only three clubs who can qualify for the Women’s Champions League from England each season, and the lure of playing European football - with the competition’s new coverage around the world on DAZN and a guaranteed minimum of €400,000 for reaching the group stages - is now stronger than ever.