'Run, run, whoever you may be' goes the famous Everton battle cry from the terraces of course and, while nobody is seriously advocating violence, Blues fans will no doubt be encouraged by the thought that Sean Dyche’s players are up for a fight.
When you’re toiling near the foot of the table, they don’t call it a relegation scrap for nothing and after several years of loyal but long-suffering Evertonians being concerned that their players were a soft touch, those same supporters who back the team both home and away can take heart that those wearing the royal blue jersey might be capable of showing at least some of the passion for the badge that they possess. After picking up FA fines for mass confrontations in their games against Liverpool and Leeds United last month, there was more fisticuffs – albeit on a smaller scale – in Everton’s tempestuous 2-2 draw at Nottingham Forest on Sunday.
Many of Everton’s successful teams had a steely side to them. The Holy Trinity of Howard Kendall, Colin Harvey and Alan Ball – aided by the likes of Johnny Morrissey, one of the hardest wingers in football – were flexible enough to spray it around when the occasion required or mix it up if an opponent wanted a fight.
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The same went for the Blues’ greatest side of the mid-1980s with the former two of that aforementioned trio by now in the home dugout at Goodison Park. The Grand Old Lady’s most-glorious night, the 3-1 comeback victory over Bayern Munich that steered the club into its only European final to date, famously featured the x-rated response from the Everton bench when the Bundesliga outfit’s coach Udo Lattek complained, 'Mr Kendall, this is not football', because the likes of Andy Gray and Peter Reid were getting stuck in.
Even the Blues’ most-recent trophy-winning team, the 1995 FA Cup winners with Barry Horne and Joe Parkinson in the engine room, captain Dave Watson at the back and an option such as Duncan Ferguson coming off the bench, were dubbed by their own manager Joe Royle as his 'Dogs of War'. With the financial sanctions coming in thick and fast of late and tempers flaring again at the City Ground over the weekend, the ECHO’s Everton correspondent Joe Thomas was asked on the latest edition of the Royal Blue podcast whether he thought the stomach for the fight would continue under Dyche.
He said: “It’s definitely going to carry on. There’s just no doubt. Two fines already under Sean Dyche, three for the season. So far, Everton have been fined £115,000 for the flare ups.
“I actually asked Dyche about this after the Leeds game because it was obvious a second charge was coming and my impression was that he didn’t care. I think in his view, he wants his players to show fight – obviously within the limits of the game.
“He can’t say this but I think he views the punishment system as it is now, incredibly flawed really with the FA clamping down on scuffles that are largely harmless. I think he doesn’t see an issue in them so long as punches aren’t being thrown and people aren’t getting hurt or injured, he sees it as part of the game and that it’s ridiculous that it’s being policed as sensitively as it currently is.
“When I spoke to him after Leeds, I asked are you having any words with your players to try and calm it down and he said, ‘no’, he didn’t have any concerns on that front. To a large degree, I think he’ll have been pleased to have seen that fight (at Forest).”
Thomas added: “When we look at the low points of Dyche’s very short stint so far as Everton boss it was the 86 minutes it took them to show any fight at Anfield plus the second half against Arsenal at the Emirates, even though the game was lost, they just collapsed. Even though it was a collapse that came against a side that was top of the league, who are rampant, at home and already 2-0 up with Everton unlikely to get anything from that game, it was still so dispiriting by how poor it was.
“I think that fight is going to continue because it’s what the fans want to see as well. I also think it will continue because Everton don’t have the quality to outperform teams or play them off the park.
“There’s no way that this Everton side stays in the Premier League if it doesn’t fight for survival. It has to fight, it has to get in teams’ faces, it has to be aggressive, it has to be assertive, because it hasn’t got the quality just to win games without that.
“There aren’t players there who are going to consistently produce moments of magic to get them out of tough situations. They’ve got to do everything they can to make it a level playing field against sides that are more often than not going to come up against them with more quality and more options so I think it’s just going to continue.”
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