OFFICIAL: Sean Dyche finally sacked as pressure for David Moyes replacement becomes imminent.
OFFICIAL: Sean Dyche finally sacked as pressure for David Moyes replacement becomes imminent.
Everton are reportedly close to sacking Sean Dyche – and there’s only one plausible replacement that makes any sense.
Should Everton really sack Sean Dyche? Things look pretty bleak after four defeats in four,
but that isn’t out of the ordinary for his teams, in truth – he has won just one game in the
first month of a new season in the last five years. But Everton aren’t just losing matches,
but losing them badly, and speculation that Dyche’s job is in danger continues to mount.
This is a team that has blown a 2-0 lead in back-to-back matches and shipped a sum total of 13 goals,
more than any other top flight side. You bring Dyche in as manager because he knows how to marshal a defence,
keep a team tight and organised, and grind out enough results to stave off relegation – and that just isn’t happening right now.
It doesn’t help the look of the whole thing that the last time he started a season conceding quite so many goals,
he was sacked before Burnley went down. Good omens are hard to come by at the moment.
Everton’s next two games come away to newly-promoted Leicester City and then at home to a Crystal Palace
side who haven’t hit the ground running. If there isn’t a win on the board by the end of September,
Dyche’s reign may well be abruptly terminated – and there is growing speculation that David Moyes
could make a return to his old club, more than a decade after he left Goodison Park following a thoroughly successful spell.
It should be noted that the rumours about Moyes’ return appear to be little more than that – an article about the notion
in The Daily Express, for instance, can only summon comments by a pundit on a BBC podcast as a source.
There is no hard evidence that Moyes has been approached, is being considered or even wants the job.
But considering Everton’s position – financial, not just in the table – and the fact Moyes is out of work after leaving
West Ham United in the summer, it’s not such a leap of logic to make.
Everton will struggle to repeat their Carlo Ancelotti trick with so much uncertainty over the club’s future and
a lot of high-class, available managers would likely turn their noses up given the dire situation on and off the pitch.
Moyes, however, is something of a hero to the blue half of Merseyside, and his return would make a great deal of sense.
Dyche has turned enough rough starts around that he deserves a chance to prove he can change course,
and the impending return of Jarrad Branthwaite may help considerably, especially given the rotten form of Michael Keane,
who was culpable for two of Aston Villa’s goals in last weekend’s comeback victory.
But if he can’t get some points on the board, you have to look at the boxes any successor would need to tick.
Moyes is hugely experienced, including with relegation battles, and coming off the back of a largely successful spell at
West Ham which saw him win their first trophy in decades. Not every West Ham fan was smitten with his style and methods,
but his work at the London Stadium at least put any notion that he was a has-been firmly to bed.
He knows how to martial a defence and get men behind the ball in much the same way Dyche does,
which will be helpful given how the squad has been constructed, with the talent concentrated in defence.
He also knows how rack up points with a limited attack, which will be even more helpful given the dearth of
quality the Toffees have going forward. Moyes’ football may not be the easiest on the eye, but it’s generally effective.
That last sentence applies equally to Dyche, of course, but if he’s lost his grip on the squad and
his specific methods aren’t working, then it doesn’t mean the broad blueprint should be abandoned.
In any case, it’s hard to imagine a more expansive manager’s methods working immediately with the
resources available at Goodison Park.
Finally, Moyes would get a lot of love from the stands, which can’t do any harm in terms of dispelling the
negative atmosphere that sits like a pall over the club. Just about everything that could be going wrong is right now,
from boardroom to bootroom, and this is a team in need of a lift.
Moyes would be an appointment that provides a little bit of that in a way that few other available managers would,
bar those that Everton either can’t afford or can’t expect to attract.
Moyes probably wouldn’t turn Everton around completely on his own.
Their squad is thin and lacking in difference-makers. But he can transmit some of the grit and
determination required to make something of the little that they have – and if Dyche can’t do that,
then it’s hard to see who else could other than Moyes. Let’s be honest,
this isn’t a situation that calls for Graham Potter, even if he was interested.
Everything looks a little bleak at Everton right now, and with good reason.
Somebody needs to get the barricades up and invoke a siege mentality that seems to be missing as it stands.
Maybe Dyche can still do that, as he has so often before. But if he fails,
Moyes is probably the only high-calibre candidate that could do it.
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