DYCHE NEEDS TO REPAIR A TEAM THAT’S FORGOTTEN HOW TO WIN
...otherwise the story of the Blues could be oblivion
YOU have to go back only nine months for the perfect illustration of why Everton want Sean Dyche.
In April last year, Dyche couldn’t have detailed more brutally the problems that beset the Goodison club and allowed Burnley a win which looked pivotal in the Premier League relegation scrap.
After his side had fought back from 2-1 down to win 3-2, Clarets boss Dyche revealed what his half-time team-talk had been. “I said to the players, ‘I’m not sure this Everton team knows how to win a game.’
“It’s hard to explain but sometimes you sense that a team might have lost how to win a game,” he said, pulling no punches.
At the time it rankled with Everton and manager Frank Lampard, and some terse phone-calls were made between the two bosses. Everton had the last laugh, surviving by the skin of their teeth while Burnley went down, but that didn’t lessen the truth of Dyche’s words.
Everton have fewer wins in the Premier League this season than any other club, just three in 20 matches. And their last victory came in October. They are a club who have forgotten how to pick up three points, with Lampard sacked after winning just one of his last 12 matches, his record the second-worst of any manager in Goodison history.
Only now has the stark truth of those statistics fully dawned on
Farhad Moshiri, the owner who has invested more than £800million in the club but who has appeared oblivious to the threats to that investment.
Everton are level on points with bottom club Southampton and it will take a near miracle for them to find the 20 points required to stay up from their remaining 18 games.
The blunt truth, as Dyche likes to deliver it, is this: relegation would be not only a disaster, but possibly terminal. There is a stadium which requires at least £500million of additional funding to be completed, and no one will provide that funding to a Championship club.
The financial implications for a business that has lost more than £400m in the last three years – and is under special measures in relation to the Premier League’s profit and sustainability rules – don’t even bear thinking about.
Some supporters think going down and regrouping may not be the worst idea, but the history of clubs being relegated in dire financial straits tells a different story. Few come back swiftly. Many fall into oblivion. Those are the stakes. And so Marcelo Bielsa or Davide Ancelotti – who has never managed anywhere – may seem like good ideas but, in reality, Everton need someone who can save them from that oblivion.
Dyche apparently delivered a clearheaded assessment of the team’s position in his interviews with Moshiri and Director of Football Kevin Thelwell. He will take a nononsense approach to survival, and
the players will understand that. But the hope is, beyond this season, he has more depth to his approach.
There is a feeling among many at Goodison that there is more than a hint of David Moyes about him. A pragmatic manager, but one who can be more expansive as the talent of his squad develops.
Moyes produced some exciting teams at Goodison, qualifying for the Champions League and playing possession-based football with the likes of Mikel Arteta in the line-up.
Most importantly of all, he tapped into the passion of Everton, the emotion of the fanbase. He made Goodison a terrible place to visit for opponents, and produced a team that knew how to win.
Now is not the time for flights of fancy for Everton, it is not the time to gamble, as Moshiri did when appointing Rafa Benitez and Marco Silva, or when flirting with Bielsa.
It is the time to face a grim reality of the current position, and take sensible steps to address it.