International break over, attention back on club football. Whilst we the fans have been able to take an early mental break from how bad the results have been, I’d imagine Everton’s squad & management have had the international break to stew over what went wrong last time out. Last time out saw them add to the ever growing list of embarrassment that is Everton football club, as they broke another unwanted record, 2-0 up 87mins played & to lose 3-2, the latest anyone has ever lead a game by 2-0 and went on to lose. It’s a disgrace from top to bottom, and further embarrassment brought to the fanbases door has put Sean Dyche under more scrutiny than maybe deserved after just 3 games in a new season. That’s the nature of the beast, you concede 10 goals in 3 games, gain 0 points & practically throw away 3pts against a horrid Bournemouth side at home when you’re winning 2-0 with 3 minutes of normal time left to play, you’re going to have anger and fan’s questioning your ability.
Ahead of the game against Villa on Saturday (tough game to bounce back with lol) I take a basic overview of what Dyche can do to impact his immediate fortunes with a swaying fan base, maybe not entirely tactically, but how he can help by helping himself.
WIN GAMES, GET POINTS, DO SOMETHING.
First things first really, really simple first point to look at…WIN GAMES OF FOOTBALL. It’s the easiest way to turn public opinion round let’s be honest, who questions a winning team!? Well in this day & age a fair amount of people but cross that bridge when it comes to it. EFC sit bottom of the league with a -8 GD, which just simply isn’t acceptable in any circumstance, to concede 10 goals in the 3 opening games is not a Dyche side at all. On that point you see the argument, if we’re dull to watch, but still leaking goals of that nature then the Dyche factor is sort of worthless, what’s the point? Personally understand it when last season you’re maybe not the best watch but you’re defence is performing great…without the other the performances are going to come in for serious slack. The whole Sean Dyche package is hard to beat & a backline/team which is tough to breach, this season thus far is the opposite, even getting completely done by crosses in the collapse to Bournemouth & just ran all over away at Spurs. It’s so unlike a Dyche side where in reality you’re hoping the break has been a wakeup call to the coaching staff of it’s time to go back to basics & first of all have the strong backline, especially with the first game back being away to Aston Villa in a tricky fixture. Everton. Need. Points.
Help yourself by quite literally, helping yourself
Dyche is well known as being sort of a realist in Press conferences, some love it, some hate it & some aren’t assed either way. The sort of ‘open book’ comments in recent weeks aren’t helping his case at the minute, so really my point here is help yourself by being more careful with what you say & how you say it. For me personally comments don’t really bother me too much with Dyche, I get what he means most of the time but some things recently on the back of bad results are bad & lead to more questions than answers. The whole ‘I could smell something’ after Bournemouth? Why not change things then? It understandably grinds gears, but outside of that there’s other little catchphrases that are sneaking in now & starting to be really quite contradictory to the Sean Dyche sort of playbook.
Shoulder the blame properly, stop bemoaning this whole “well that happened before I got here!” this is your team now Sean, you’ve been here now since January 2023. Think at this time (or close to it) he’d be more or less the longest reigning manager of the Moshiri era, this is HIS team now, it’s your job to change the side & ‘change the story’. To constantly reference the playing side as “it happened before I came here” defies the point of you being manager, if you can’t change any of it in the spell you’ve been here then what are you doing in your job? Shoulder the blame, Own it as they say, it’s your team now under your regime & your coaching for the best part of 18months, you are the frontman and the leader of your team.
Stop relying on the past as an excuse.
Next one also ties in to the pressers, and it’s a sense of stop fabricating things to make yourself feel/look better…know that sounds a bit extreme, but this whole ‘expectation we should be in Europe as it’s goodison’s last season’ is laughable. I agree with him on certain points of one minute your fine the next you’re the worst, but no one with a straight face from EFC expected Europe, if they did it was through extreme wishful thinking…. The whole thing from Dyche’s POV is to lower expectation, which is fair either way in terms of a dose of realism squad wise, however the fabricated line of unrealistic expectation is in my view a sense of belittlement to the EFC fan base.
In Game/Team management.
The most obvious one coming post Bournemouth, use/trust your squad by affecting in game management. EFC have limited funds right now, but they’ve still managed to supply the manager with squad depth going forward, maybe not of *high* quality, but depth in a manner that can help affect games & replace tired legs with fresh ones. The Bournemouth game at the time was some of the worst I’ve seen in that department, subs for the sake of subs & as many have said felt very much like a sub just to get for example Iliman Ndiaye the standing ovation he deserved. Tide was turning, EFC needed to get more of a foot on the ball for fatigued players, obvious change was James Garner for a very leggy Tim Iroegbunam, however this was ignored. There’s a sense of contradicting statements in the post-match of it too (tying back to above) of Dyche saying Ndiaye was fatigued & that was why the change was made, however the clear fatigue levels of Iroegbunam/Coleman were clear for all to see watching that game. It’s nothing new & has been the big topic of conversation over the last week, but it’s just a sense from Dyche wavering from things he says, he likes to keep a winning side together even on tired legs, but took off the main out ball in Ndiaye for ‘fatigue’ but left the others on? Crazy.
In game management has to be better, and injured players/players getting fitter should spark Dyche to engage in this, take advantage of a squad which in what feels like for the first time in years has an adequate bench. Likes of Branthwaite/Patterson coming back should help on top of Lindstrom/Tarkowski/Mykolenko/Garner/O’Brien get match fit, with late additions of Mangala/Broja.
Do better, the squad lacks in departments, and I’m not one saying it’s a good squad on paper, but what you have on your side is continuity, there should be progress & shouldn’t always be streaky runs or absent Augusts.
The consequence/result of potentially sacking Dyche?
Listen, if he doesn’t turn above round & especially results then Moshiri will have a decision to make…or will he?
I said other day on twitter, that Moshiri isn’t this trigger happy owner anymore, he simply doesn’t care enough.
The only thing Farhad Moshiri cares about now is his club being a PL side to be attractive to potential bidders. Sean Dyche despite long winless runs has done this for him for 2 seasons now & is essentially doing the job the owner has asked him to do. The only way FM intervenes in managerial change is if it’s looking very desperate in terms of that PL status being affected.
Do I think all things considered Dyche will take Everton down? No I honestly don’t, it’ll be tougher than it should be, but I don’t. I honestly don’t think anyone at EFC thinks Dyche will take them down either, with a lot of credit in the bank from previous 2 years. The season is really just let’s plug away, get results, stay up again & move to BMD
Hypothetical again, but if they did get rid of Dyche, the answer on everyone’s mind is David Moyes, who I’d imagine would want more than a contract purely until the end of the season with a decent little pay packet himself. People often clamour for the hope of EFC’s next coach being young, hungry, and fresh with a front foot style of play.
My question to end above is really, is it worth bearing with Dyche for the next 8/9 months until his deal expires & hopefully we’re still a PL club, and have a completely fresh restart in the summer with any luck a new owner overseeing it? Or panic, appoint Moyes & maybe you’re asking your same ‘style of football’ question again in 3months time? Just my thoughts.
To end.
Overall this feels like a complete bashing of Dyche as I finish it, but it’s genuinely not meant to be, it’s meant to be a picking of the faults which has got a fan base really starting to dislike the manager.
Me personally, I’m not getting itchy feet anytime soon, not a great start & really not ideal, pressure I snow back on themselves after those short comings. But 3 games in? That’s not a time for me to even be considering a managerial change, let alone under our circumstance. Everton’s team (yes team, managerial staff & playing staff aligned) have got enough backing from me after last season, and an earned level of trust that they have the ability to turn this round like the first 86mins from the last game showed they are capable of.
It’s just a write up essentially of just picking up on what’s been getting people annoyed to start the season.
Let’s hopefully see the next part much more positive, with abundance of players now available, hopefully new signings gelling to make us more competitive & allowing us to climb the table…forgetting this start ever happened.
UTFT.
About The Author
Leave a Reply