I've been on record and said I think he's been great on the whole.
However..
He got his first strike against him by crashing out the league cup to a frankly dreadful Southampton when there was a genuine dance to win the whole thing.
His second strike and first major one, was Watford. Thought he cut a clueless figure out there and he had given up on the game, getting a point was nothing to do with him, it felt.
Against the big guns he's been either unlucky or disappointing. If he gets something out of the city game it's the first major strike IN FAVOUR of him, for me. Where he's generally been good so far he's not had that stand out result yet. This weekend could be it.
		
		
	 
Agree with this although I think against Watford we suffered due to the lack of squad depth. Silva gave some of the B team a run out against Newcastle and they underwhelmed, and it seems that past the first 11 playing 4-2-3-1 he doesn’t have a system he can switch to with the squad at his disposal in order to turn the tide in a football match. Instead we jus throw the strikers on and abandon playing football - not good enough for a manager or team aiming for top 6, although somewhat understandable as players like Davies, Dowell, Lookman are not  up to the standard where they can come off the bench and impose themselves on a premier league game yet. With that in mind though I think it’s imperative Silva adds either a powerful CM or CF to the squad in January if possible in order to give him the option to play a different way if required. If January isn’t possible then this definitely needs adressing in the summer and from that point onwards I think there’s no excuse for dropping points at home to bottom half teams. With regards to this season, and regardless of whether or not we strengthen in Jan, I think the following are fair criteria to judge Silva’s first season as successful or not:
- Finishing 7th or above; even in a transition season we should be aiming to be better than Bournemouth and Leicester who are our closest rivals for 7th now, and with united being poor this year 6th is a real possibility if we can be consistent.
- FA cup semi final; after the league cup disappointment we need to take the FA cup seriously this year and short of drawing City away early on we should be looking to get at least a Wembley trip. We’ve already shown we can hold our own against the top 6 and shouldn’t fear any of them
- 7 or more away wins; the away form has been an issue for some time. We currently have 6 points from 7 away games (1 win, 3 draws) with 12 to go. We’ve played all of the top 6 away with the exception ignore spurs, so the remaining away fixtures are majority against team so below us - meaning that a 50% win percentage for the remaining games should be achievable.
- 12 points at home against the big 6; it’s  been close away from home against them all and they all still have to come to Goodison meaning 18 points on offer. Chelsea, United, Arsenal, Liverpool all look beatable and we need to get back to taking points off these sides when they come to Goodison.
- Just win the god damn derby against the RS at Goodison.
There’s 5 there and realistically achieving some means others will likely happen too however I’d say 40% success rate would be the minimum acceptable, with 60% good and 80%+ excellent. Whilst I’m sure some people will say these targets aren’t ambitious enough (e.g. we should be winning the FA cup) I have set them based on assessing a managers first season only, and of course if Silva were to drastically exceed the criteria in any of the above then it will obviously go a long way to settling the debate in itself.
There are positive signs so far but as we know too well a season can quickly fizzle out into nothing, so it’s all still to prove for Silva and for Everton to play for.