Sean Dyche’s obstinacy worries me a lot; Everton has to make a change.
Sean Dyche needs to change the mindset of Evertonians because I fear the tide is starting to turn against him.
It’s up to him to look at himself in the mirror and say: ‘I’ve gone with my philosophy, it’s not working, what can I do?’ He has to come up with a solution because that’s his job and he’s getting paid to win football matches.
A run of one win in 15 matches is not good enough, whether you’re in the ‘Dog and Duck’ league or the Premier League. You need to find a way of winning football games.
I think everyone has already said what a shambles Everton’s display at Chelsea was and how predictable it was once we’d gone a goal down. What baffles me is that when a manager comes to Everton Football Club and they go through a difficult patch, they get this delusional side of things when they’re speaking in press conferences and that concerns me a lot.
What we’re seeing and the manager is seeing are two different things. Sean Dyche likes to say how he’s been in management for 500 games and with his coaching staff they’ve got over a thousand games between them but if they can’t see what the majority of Evertonians can see, that’s really concerning.
He says the last time we capitulated like that was at Aston Villa but I disagree, it’s been a long time since I saw Everton put in a top performance. Apart from Tottenham away – which we lost – we haven’t dominated or dictated a football game and that’s why he’s got the worst Premier League run in our history.
We understand that the squad depth is not there but there are other options to give it a go. Yes, Sean Dyche kept us up but he has his favourites and it took him too long last season to make changes.
If he’d made those switches earlier then it might have been a bit smoother. He stuck with Michael Keane who was going through a difficult period and we were crying out for Yerry Mina to come into the side but it took far too long for that to happen and I’m seeing a similar picture now.
I don’t want to pick out individual players because they don’t deserve that and I don’t want to mention their names but two of the players on that pitch were out there for around 97 minutes each and they touched the ball 22 times. Every week in this column, I ask for people to take accountability and the owner needs to do that – Farhad Moshiri was present at Stamford Bridge to witness it – but players need to look themselves in the mirror and say: ‘I don’t want to be the weak link, I want to make sure I walk off that pitch with my head held high.’
