Sean Dyche’s press conferences have often been entertaining affairs with the soon-to-be new Everton manager keeping the assembled media on their toes and while he was enthusiastic about the topic of lookalikes, he didn’t take kindly to a question about his choice of clothing.
The 51-year-old Blues boss was in charge of Burnley for almost a decade but a couple of his pre-match interviews from 2021 hit the headlines for his animated responses.
Firstly, in February that year Dyche went off topic in a remote press conference as he tried to lighten the mood when face-to-face interaction with reporters was still not allowed due to coronavirus-induced restrictions. The banter was sparked by one journalist telling the then Clarets boss: “Has anyone ever told you that you look just like Mick Hucknall?”
Dyche said: “It’s uncanny you say that. Apparently I look very much like Chris Evans too.
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“Personally speaking, I can’t see it myself but apparently I do. So it’s a fair point that you make.
“Thank you very much for reminding everyone of that clear fact that I obviously do look like Mick Hucknall. Thank you.”
Another reporter chips in: “I have no idea where these press conferences are going anymore. No idea.”
Dyche said: “They’re brilliant because they’re less boring. It’s like lockdown is really hard for everybody and it’s really boring for everyone so we’re just having a natter and just trying to show a bit of humanity in the world… we are human.
“Boring questions, I bat them off, a silly question, I give a silly answer and we might as well not bore everyone to death.”
The reporter replies: “We’ve sunk to ‘look-alikies’ now.”
Dyche said: “No, we’re raising ourselves to look-alikies. Look-alikies make the world go round.
“Have you never sat in a pub – well that seems like a distant memory – with your mates and just found look-alikies in the pub, it’s one of the best bits of fun you’ll ever have in a night, trust me. Do it, the next time you’re allowed in a pub, sit with some friends, I know you’re probably only allowed about three, and just look for look-alikies.
“Brilliant. Brilliant fun, we’re not lowering ourselves, we’re raising the bar, we’re adding.
“On holiday it’s a brilliant family game. Look-alikies on holiday, you get your kids at it, once they’re of an age, fantastic fun.
“Because people nudge each other and do that thing where they say ‘dad, I’ve got one… look over there, left, Bungle.’ You’re like ‘woah, how do you even know Bungle?’”
Dyche then went on to recall a specific lookalike he had spotted. He said: “Has anyone seen the kids’ film Up? You know the little old man with the glasses on, I swear to you, we were playing away at Sunderland and a live human version of the man in Up was there.
“I said to the staff, ‘oh my God lads, I’ve got the best one ever,’ I was nudging them around the table because he was just literally at the bar there. I said ‘the fella out of Up.’
“Oh my God, they were crying. It’s the best look-alikie I’ve ever had.
“It was literally the cartoon man out of Up but in a human form, it was bizarre. The lads went ‘oh my God, it is actually him,’ to the point that you want to get a selfie, you know one of those subliminal ones where he’s just at the bar, you turn and go ‘click.’”
Nine months down the line though, in what proved to be his final season in charge at Turf Moor, Dyche was less amused by a line of questioning after he was spotted out on the pitch without a jacket on when the Clarets’ home game against Tottenham Hotspur was postponed due to heavy snow. Appearing in a club-branded t-shirt, Dyche was told by Sky Sports’ Gary Cotterill that he appeared overdressed.
However, the tongue-in-cheek remark was welcomed and he replied: “Are we really going to make a story out of the fact I had a shirt on? Is that the best we can do today?
“Do people ever think I was out there for about 14-and-a-half seconds? It’s a strange world we live in.”
The reporter added: “A long-sleeved shirt though…” Dyche said: “Yeah, I’m disappointed in myself, I’ll wear a short-sleeved next time.”
Cotterill then made a remark about Dyche potentially donning a scarf and a woolly hat to which he responded: “So this is the best we can do then? So we are going to go down that road, that’s brilliant.”
When the reporter laboured the point by asking if the players were allowed to wear snoods, Dyche then pretended to fall asleep and start snoring before telling him: “Come on, let’s have something real, come on.”
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