Dyche: Being the Everton manager is like juggling sand

BEING manager of Everton is like ‘juggling sand’, according to boss Sean Dyche who also compared trying to stop the endless negative noise at the club to ‘putting your fingers in the dam’.

The Toffees won their first home Merseyside derby since 2010 with a 2-0 victory over Liverpool on Wednesday but the club are still hamstrung by financial crises and a protracted takeover saga with the Premier League at odds with prospective American owners 777 Partners.

Five senior players are out of contract in the summer including club captain Seamus Coleman, impressive midfielder Idrissa Gana Gueye, plus experienced heads Ashley Young, Andre Gomes and former England star Dele Alli. Transfer business in the last few windows has been extremely limited, with Everton dealing mainly in cheap deals and loans to balance the financial books. That is likely to continue this summer and Everton might be forced to sell a key asset to help cut losses after the latest set of accounts showed they were £89.1million in the red.

The club have already had two points deductions and could face another Premier League D-Day next year.

‘I am waiting to see the realities of what we can and can’t do,’ said Dyche. ‘It’s been a constant here, and not just about players. There’s always something going on here, it is like juggling sand. How do you master that?

‘Every time we go, “Yes, that’s good”, something crops up and it’s, “That’s not good, now we have to solve that”. It’s like putting your fingers in the dam. The club is in this flux and we can’t guarantee one way or the other so we’re shifting, moving and moulding as we can.’ Everton can guarantee safety today against Brentford if they make it three straight wins and Luton fail to beat Wolves.