When the news broke that Ronald Koeman was being tempted by Everton, both the Toffee's and Koeman's agent seemed confident that Koeman would be in charge at Goodison Park by Saturday evening.

We know from experience that when a club comes in for your manager and he seems to want to go that the deal is usually done swiftly, indeed Rob Jansen Koeman's agent seemed to hint as much when he declared on Saturday evening that his client had agreed terms with Everton.

Jansen quickly backtracked a day later when he took the unprecedented step of contacting major news outlets to retract his previous claims saying that he had been misquoted.

There was a good reason for that and that was as Saints had not given Koeman permission to talk to Everton, Jansen had broken every rule in the book, that is the hypocrisy of football, the rules are flaunted and that is fine as long as you don't boast about it so everyone can pretend its a very ethical industry.

But on Saturday night it seemed that it was only a matter of time before Koeman would be unveiled as Everton boss, it seemed that the only thing that needed to be agreed was the compensation that Everton would need to pay Saints and with the Merseyside club desperate to pay anything to land their man and Saints presumably now resigned to losing him, keen to get on with finding a successor, this seemed a mere formality.

Indeed most sources were still saying at the beginning of today that Koeman would be unveiled by the end of today (Monday)

Now it seems that this is not going to happen and that the announcement could be delayed a week as Koeman has decided to go off on holiday again and the question is why ?

There seems to be no logical reason why he could not have delayed his departure a day or two and then gone on holiday and there are those that suggest that Koeman is not as happy about the deal as his agent would have you believe.

Could it be that Koeman is wrestling with his conscience ? leaving Saints for big money after constantly telling everyone that he would see out his contract at least would not have been easy for him, he has never behaved in this mercenary fashion before.

Then there are the players who have recently signed long term deals partly because of his assurances that he would be staying stay, again for a man who has prided himself on behaving in an honourable fashion in the past this will all be weighing on his mind.

Lastly though and perhaps most importantly there will be where this leaves his broher Erwin and other members of his staff that he brought with him from the Netherlands, reports say that Everton do not want Erwin and therefore by moving he is effectively putting his brother and indeed his friends out of a job.

When Koeman jetted off on holiday from Saints a few weeks ago without putting pen to paper on a new deal there were those who were nervous, this latest development will not please Everton who wanted to have ths done and dusted and they will worry that as much as he intended returning from his holiday last week and sign a new deal for Saints that when he returns from this one he will have changed his mind about going to Goodison Park.

Certainly he has not had a lot of time to sit and reflect on this career change, his agent and everton have driven this through fast and furious, about the only thing going for it and most football pundits concur on this, that it will make him a very rich man, indeed it has little sign of merit for his career at least in the short to medium term, Everton will worry that a few days rest might make him think that this might lead him to change his mind again.

One thing for sure is that neither Saints or Everton will be pleased he has jetted off leaving everything up in the air, in football you want to know what is happening , not be faced with uncertainty.

Photo: Action Images

perazi added 22:19 - Jun 6 Juicy story but there's zero chance Ron is having doubts about his decision or feeling pangs of conscience. Nor would the issue of his brother become a point of delay; what new manager doesn't bring in his own team as part of the process? My guess is that it's just the tin tacks of the compensation amount being sorted and the formalities will follow.
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Big_T added 22:49 - Jun 6 I seem to remember reading something about Ronald and Erwin making an agreement on their farther death that they will always work together? How will this sit if Everton don't want his brother? Funny old game football.
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zonehead added 23:49 - Jun 6 I agree the last flickering flame of hope
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SaintBrock added 13:54 - Jun 7 None of this news reached me in the South of France so yesterday's catch up left me in a state of apoplexy, surely this can't happening to us once again? Which, Nick, is exactly why I refused to renew my Season Ticket by the deadline, if these people can so easily playing fast and loose with fans emotions and interests then sod them all. If it happens nobody will come out of this with any credit. There's obviously something much deeper going on behind the scenes if the sixth best team of the best league in the world cannot hold on to it's star players and most successful ever manager even when they are "in Europe" next season. We've heard no news at all of Ralph Kreuger staying on for example, he signed up for one more year last summer if you remember so is he off as well? If so that could really mean only one thing, the Liebherr's are about to sell the club - has it ever been more valuable than now? - so faced with this uncertain future all the medium sized rats are jumping ship. The mystery surrounds the actions of Les Reed busy signing up players for long term contracts whilst all else disintegrates around him. OK I can well imagine him living in an Ivory Tower and being completely ignorant of what is going on around him so the owners know they can leave him to carry on regardless just to create a sense of normality and business as usual. New owners will quickly dispose of the hapless old buffoon anyway and no doubt contracts will just be pieces of paper for lawyers to argue about. At the end of this latest mess, let's just hope and pray that we still have Dave Watson and Sammy Lee on board people with real world skills and ability to keep what is left in reasonable shape. In fact they might make a great managerial duo. That really is it for me, divorce is tough at any time (believe me) so a divorce from SMS won't be that bad to bear.

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SanMarco added 14:04 - Jun 7 Goodness me SaintBrock - not sure it is quite that bad yet. Leicester came first and they are being dismantled by the 'big' boys. This Everton thing has quite literally come 'out of the blue' and even Les Reed wouldn't have seen it coming. There is no evidence that the Liebherrs intend to sell and quite frankly I will lose no sleep over the prospect of the other RK leaving. Of course all will change if the club don't respond to recent events decisively...

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