Sean Dyche has admitted livelihoods are at stake in Everton’s final four matches and he intends to restore “core values” to the club irrespective of its Premier League fate.
Everton face a daunting task to drag themselves out of the relegation zone with a trip to high-flying Brighton on Monday followed by Manchester City’s visit to Goodison Park next Sunday. The futures of several internationals, including Jordan Pickford and Amadou Onana, will be shaped by which division Everton are playing in next season. But Dyche admits the consequences of relegation, and the responsibility to avoid it, are more widespread.
“The next four games not only affect people’s futures but people’s lives and livelihoods,” he said. “That is football. That is the challenge. That is the reality. Our job is to create a new reality, but that is the current one.”
The Everton manager’s sole focus is on the next four matches but he acknowledges rebuilding work must be done this summer that is not tied to which division the club finds itself in.
“There are certain core values about how a club should be operating and it is not about the plan of which division you are in,” he said. “It should be operating that way, full stop. That is my opinion. That is what I am hoping to build over time. In the immediacy we need to win enough games.
“The bigger picture has to shape the whole club to get it in the right direction. It can’t just be: ‘Oh we have stayed up again.’ That is not building anything. That is just surviving. We do not want to be just surviving. We want to be growing. That is a different ballgame.
“The job when I got here – and it was well documented before I got here – all the problems, the noise and negativity around the club has been there for a long time. You can’t turn it around in one moment. There is loads to do and loads going on behind the results, but the results are still the key thing at the moment. We need to get the job done, get to the summer and then start all the big stuff. But the key at the minute is the games and that is the focus.”
