In the autumn of 2017, around the time Everton were in the throes of the kind of chaos that has, sadly, become all too familiar, Lille OSC were descending into a crisis of their own as Marcelo Bielsa's short-lived tenure at the French club came to an ignominious end. The Argentine coach had only been in the manager's role at Stade Pierre-Mauroy for a few months before he was suspended and then ultimately sacked in December.

Lille were in the bottom three of Ligue 1, beset by financial problems and seemingly destined for relegation that season and while Everton turned, somewhat hastily by most accounts, to Sam Allardyce to plug the gap left by Ronald Koeman, Les Dogues hired Christophe Galtier from Saint-Étienne and, crucially, retained sporting director, Luis Campos.

Less than two years later, thanks to Campos's masterful recruitment and transfer policy and Galtier's managerial acumen, Lille finished second in the French league, qualifying for the Champions League in the process. Two years after that they would be crowned champions, breaking mega-rich Paris Saint-Germain's stranglehold on the domestic scene to become only the second club outside Paris to win Ligue 1 in eight years.

It's a rapidly-achieved feat that has vaulted Galtier into the consciousness of those European clubs currently on the look-out for a new manager, particularly after the 54-year-old signalled his intention to resign his post at Lille this spring, feeling as though his 3½-year stint as boss had come to a natural end with the capture of the title and the inevitable recycling to come of players out of the club this summer.

That revolving door of talent is the legacy of Campos who left his position as Lille's director of football in December having helped build the foundations of Galtier's success. The club's cash crunch in 2017-18 had necessitated the sale of players like Yves Bissouma (now at Brighton and an increasingly coveted player in the Premier League), Ibrahim Amadou and Hamza Mendyl but Campos drafted in Rafael Leào, Jonathan Bamba and José Fonte for nothing and picked up Zeki Çelik and Jonathan Ikoné for a combined €7.5m.

Since then, Leào (€30m), Nicolas Pépé (€80m), Thiago Mendes (€22m) and Gabriel Magalhaes (€26m) have also all been sold on to be replaced by the likes of Renato Sanches, Timothy Weah and Benjamin Andre, players that Galtier moulded into a title-winning outfit despite losing some of his best players from the previous season.

As Unai Emery proved after leaving Seville where he won the Europa League three times alongside Monchi, struggling at Arsenal but then finding success again at Villarreal, sometimes a manager struggles to shine in the shadow of a master sporting director. But Campos has been quick to sing the praises of his former partner, speaking in glowing terms to Sky Sports News this week in the context of potential interest in Galtier from Everton as Farhad Moshiri and Marcel Brands seek to fill the void left by Carlo Ancelotti's sudden departure for Real Madrid:

"Christophe has all the qualities to coach in England. Technically he is very astute and is extremely detailed in his planning when preparing a team.

"He likes a 4-4-2 system, which would fit with the Premier League and he is a fantastic motivator in the dressing room.

"He likes to build a side with quality and youth, he is someone that can develop a team ethic, and he is also a fantastic human being."

Just how much interest there has been from Everton in Galtier isn't very clear and there is the small matter of a verbal agreement the Frenchman is believed to have made with Nice after declaring his intention to step down from his post at Lille. At least one observer in France, Alexis Bernard, believes that he will honour that arrangement but Galtier has spoken of interest from Napoli in the interim and while nothing is signed, the door remains ajar for the Blues to try and tempt him to Goodison Park.

“I think that I have proved everywhere I have been that I give 200% of myself.”

Christophe Galtier

But given Galtier's achievements in France, first at Saint-Étienne and now Lille, and particularly in the latter case working hand-in-hand with a dedicated director of football, there is plenty to admire about him as a potential candidate for the Everton “hot seat”. And after a season of mystifyingly little direction on the pitch under Ancelotti, a coach with a set system, ability to balance defensive solidity with attacking output, and the powers to motivate players that Galtier appears to have, the more you read about him, the more you hope that he is genuinely being considered.

A former Lille player who began his career at Marseille and also had spells at Toulouse, Angers, Nimes and Monza, Galtier went into management a decade after hanging up his boots at the conclusion of a season spent in China with Liaoning. He was hired by struggling Saint-Étienne in 2009 charged with keeping the club in France's top flight, a task he managed that season. Within four years he had won ASSE's first trophy in more than three decades and, in very Moyesian fashion, he would guide them to seven consecutive top-half finishes over the remainder of his tenure before LOSC came calling.

Three full seasons on, Galtier has been described by Adam White for Get French Football News as “France's most sought-after coach” who “has found a solution to every problem [at Lille]” to deliver “an amazing achievement” in 2020-21. White puts LOSC's title upset down to the “miracle of Galtier's coaching. Lille are often impenetrable — 22 goals against is comfortably the lowest in the division — but they can score from all areas.” Away from home, at least, Everton under Ancelotti had half of that equation down; imagine if someone like Galtier could complete it!

Favouring a 4-2-3-1 formation in his first 18 months in charge at Lille, Galtier adopted more of a 4-4-2 setup this season which was, as Edward Stratmann writes on the Wyscout blog, based on supreme organisation at the back with an emphasis on remaining “compact horizontally and vertically to stifle opponents”. Typically defending in a base 4-4-2 shape that can often resemble a 4-2-2-2, they've been a well-oiled machine when pressing and sitting deeper in a compact mid or deep block.

“So comfortable in their mid-block, Lille control dangerous central areas effectively, with their spacing and frequent adjustments allowing them to block pass lanes and minimise space between their lines. Being so content and secure without the ball, there's no issue for Les Dogues not having the ball, for they can quickly spring into life on the counter-attack from their closely connected defensive shape.”

With the ball, as Andres Ramirez writes at MSN, “Lille move to a 3-6-1 to create passing triangles across all three banks of their players. They like to build out from the back, with the two centre-backs — starting wide and deep while the wingbacks push up to pin the opposition wingers back and look for long switches of play.

“More often than not, however, Lille move the ball forward methodically and rely on heavy wing play in order to create attacking chances. Offensively, they're a very vertical side that doesn't rely as much on counterattacks as they do transitions.”

Based on those assessments, there is plenty about Galtier's approach that mirrors what was supposed to be happening from a tactical standpoint at Everton under Marco Silva and Ancelotti but which didn't ever coalesce into a well-rounded whole. Both managers liked to play out from the back but struggled to break teams down so if Brands can solve some deep-seated problems around pace and creativity in the side, there is scope for a manager of Galtier's skill-set to slot right in.

Galtier's achievements to date are impressive and, unlike Roberto Martinez in 2013, Silva in 2018 and Ancelotti in 2019, they are representative of a man whose career is on an upward trajectory, something Everton haven't really had since Ronald Koeman was appointed five years ago. The Marseille-born coach says of himself that, “I think that I have proved everywhere I have been that I give 200% of myself,” and that kind of hunger and drive, illustrated by the videos of his guttural delight at winning the French league, are also qualities that will be like music to Evertonian ears.

Despite toppling a Champions League semi-finalist in PSG, though, as a coach untried outside of what is widely regarded to be among the weakest of Europe's big five leagues, Galtier would represent a certain degree of risk for Everton. That lack of elite-level pedigree from a country not renowned for producing managerial greats would require a leap of faith to an extent that Moshiri and Brands might find uncomfortable at this stage of their “project”, with the need for tangible progress all the more acute.

And yet even though he lacks genuine Premier League experience (he had a brief spell as Alain Perrin's assistant at Portsmouth many moons ago), he is eminently more qualified than Silva or even Moyes were and arguably more so than Martinez at the time. When stacked up against the other candidates currently being linked with the club's vacancy — “exciting” names like Benitez, Howe, Espirito Santo and Moyes — he at least offers something different; something new.

It seems more and more like every appointment is a roll of the dice and with the Blues needing a sense of identity, a steel-eyed motivator and, perhaps, a coach rather than a manager more than anything right now, someone like a Galtier or Erik Ten Hag — managers with relative youth on their side, a visible ethos and hunger to succeed — feels a good deal more attractive than the tired old options looking to revive a flagging career currently being wheeled out by the UK media and betting firms.

Ultimately, the biggest risk in appointing someone without established Premier League credentials and with Galtier's specific skillset and preferred way of playing might lie in a failure to bring in the right kinds of players but recruitment will be crucual whichever coach Everton appoint. Having worked with Campos to bring through younger, up-and-coming talent, a model which many fans feel Everton should strongly adopt again after the departure towards older talent under Ancelotti, Galtier has the look of someone who could mesh nicely with Brands's modus operandi and overall vision for the club's future.


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