If the defeat to Fulham marked the end of his honeymoon period as Everton manager, nine words in one sentence of Sean Dyche’s post-match press conference proved chilling.
Typically the Blues boss didn’t try and sugar-coat what was much more than a bad day at the office for his side when he observed: “Today it reverted back to before we were here.” A return to the ‘bad old Everton’, the team that ended Rafael Benitez’s brief but loveless marriage with one win in his last 13 Premier League games, ensured Frank Lampard never made it to his first anniversary after finishing with one win in 12 Premier League matches and in between, came disgustingly close to a first relegation since 1951.
During that period, after what proved to be the last victory as Burnley manager, Dyche revealed that in his half-time team talk, he’d told his players when trailing 2-1 that this Blues side “don’t know how to win” and the Clarets duly came back to triumph 3-2. Saturday marked a year to the day since Dyche’s nine-and-a-half year reign at Turf Moor came to an abrupt halt on Good Friday 2022 but while he worked miracles on a shoestring budget in what was the top flight’s smallest market, the demands at a football giant such as Everton are far greater.
The 51-year-old, whose image mocked up like King Henry VIII still adorns the sign of ‘The Royal Dyche’ public house in the East Lancashire town forever grateful for the revival he brought to their club remains confident in his abilities. When asked ahead of last month’s trip to Chelsea about the differences in the situations he faced last season and the task at hand here, there was a twinkle in his eye when boldly declaring that Burnley would have stayed up had he remained in charge.
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However, after getting to three wins in his first seven games as Everton manager – the same total predecessor Lampard (who has now gone on to oversee three defeats in a week back at Chelsea) had managed in 20 this term – Saturday’s visit of Fulham appeared to represent a watershed moment in which there was a fork in the road over the Blues’ revival under the current regime. A victory would have put Dyche level on four wins and four losses but instead the Cottagers’ first ever league success at Goodison Park in front of fans leaves loyal but long-suffering Evertonians anxiously wondering just where the required points to avoid going down for the first time in 72 years are going to come from as their winless streak extended to four matches.
From the moment that they stunned Premier League leaders Arsenal 1-0 in Dyche’s first game in charge on February 1, the Blues have come a long way in a short space of time under the current regime but several factors appeared to catch up with them against another former boss Marco Silva. Injuries have started to bite and as much as Amadou Onana’s lack of experience was exposed at Old Trafford, with Abdoulaye Doucoure still suspended, Everton badly missed his physical presence against Fulham.
Playing 4-4-2 might have been Dyche’s tactical bread and butter at Burnley but this Blues team continue to be outnumbered and overrun when they don’t have three in central midfield; both starting full-backs were repeatedly caught out and it was painful viewing watching the ball being played long to a strike partnership of Neal Maupay and Demarai Gray. But as the manager himself conceded: “When a goal goes in it was a bit lackadaisical then and that can’t happen.”
Dyche is attempting to oversee sweeping changes both physically and mentally within the Everton squad but this kind of display those of us who have the club’s best interests at heart were hoping was being consigned to history. Perhaps part of the problem from a psychological point of view can be seen at Finch Farm itself, staring the manager in the face?
Photographs shown Dyche arriving at the Blues’ Halewood training complex for the first time and in conversation with director of football Kevin Thelwell show the pair walking past large pictures adorning the walls of the post-match scenes at Goodison Park following the 3-2 comeback win over Crystal Palace that secured the club’s top flight status in the final home match of last season. While nobody can deny the euphoria and relief that Evertonians felt at that moment, decorating your players’ daily place of work with glossy prints of the joint lowest equivalent points total in the club’s entire history understandably doesn’t sit well with some.
When writing in the club's accounts for 2021/22, chairman Bill Kenwright reference the match – along with the trip to Leicester City – as two games that "will stay with me forever" but Nil Satis Nisi Optimum or even "good times" it most certainly isn’t. Everton cannot be burdened by unrealistic expectations from their proud motto or weighed down by their history but instead they should serve as inspirations to rise to the challenge again and not settle for the passiveness of recent times in what looks like being another fight to the finish.
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