IT WAS DO OR DYCHE FOR BOARD
SIDELINE ANTICS A DISTRACTION
MAKING Sean Dyche the new Everton manager was a nobrainer. As soon as Marcelo Bielsa said no, it was a sticky Toffee situation for the Everton board.
They needed a Plan C after Plan A (Frank Lampard) and Plan B (Bielsa) hadn’t worked. So they turn to Mr Mid Table, the man who knows how to stop a bad circumstance getting worse… a man who’ll put his finger in the Dyche.
Right now, it’s the right choice.
Dyche (right) knows how to win relegation battles, how to solidify a team, how to get them out of the bottom three.
Deal
But wait, he doesn’t have a six-month contract, but a twoand-a-half year deal.
And that’s going to be a long-term problem because ultimately Everton see themselves as a big club, one that is capable of breaking into the top six. If they want to become a top, top club, Dyche is not going to be that man. But if they just want to stay up, he is the only man.
PEP GUARDIOLA and Mikel Arteta were joke figures on Friday night.
The antics of the pair of them during the Manchester City versus Arsenal match was an embarrassment.
Football should be about what happens on the pitch; instead, the TV cameras kept getting drawn to The Pep and Arteta Show on the sideline.
Break
Whenever there was a break in the game, the cameras switched to the managers gesticulating, arguing, endlessly trying to get their players across to them for impromptu team talks.
Well, that never works because the only time players will retain information is at half-time. They need calmness. Pep and Arteta were manic.
Watching
Pep his arms in the air was like watching a drunken eejit at a wedding trying to jive to Staying Alive by the Bee Gees.
But instead of Saturday Night Fever we got Fright throwing Night Friday – the fright being that Pep and Arteta’s egos are potentially bigger than Donald Trump’s.
And it made me sick.
For that FA Cup fourth round clash should have been a classic. League leaders versus champions.
But Arteta bottled it. Rotating his team, making eight changes, was a cop-out.
Think about it. Arteta worked under Pep at City. He has become a clone of him.
But when you work with someone for so long, you get to know their tricks, so you should be able to guess in advance what they are planning to do.
Marker
This was his chance to lay down a marker, to get one over his former boss, to let his best players have a shot at City.
But by not picking his strongest XI, he exposed a weakness in his mentality. You could argue that Guardiola has the ability and the depth to rotate and that Arteta hasn’t. (left)
You could point to the fact that Pep has won 32 trophies in his managerial career.
Well, he is going to make that 33 this May – because Arsenal won’t win the League, City will.
Friday proved that.
We saw Arsenal chicken out by making eight changes to their team.
They should have gone there, gave it their best effort, and this stems from picking the best X1 at your disposal.
Stem
It doesn’t stem from throwing away the chance to win a trophy.
Out of the EFL Cup, not even in the Champions League, they are putting all their eggs in one basket.
Of course, there is the Europa League but who cares? The Eurovision Song Contest has more prestige.
The last week has shown us honesty in football.
Eddie Howe showed it at Southampton when Newcastle brought his best team there and won the first leg of the cup.
Tottenham showed Preston on Saturday.
Arsenal and Arteta showed us one thing on Friday.
That this show is all about him, the manager, the gaffer, the ego.
Arteta is just Pep-Lite. Unless he changes his mentality, Arsenal won’t win any league title. it at