Sean Dyche has said he is still earning the right to be Everton’s manager despite leading the club through a series of crises to achieve Premier League safety with three games to spare.
Everton visit Luton on Friday with the pressure off for the first time in Dyche’s reign having secured their top-flight status with last weekend’s win over Brentford, their fourth successive league victory and clean sheet at Goodison Park. The achievement is all the more impressive given the club suffered two separate points deductions totalling eight points, had to make a profit in the transfer market last summer and has called in a firm of restructuring and insolvency advisers amid a protracted takeover saga.
Dyche admits dealing with the off-field turmoil has been “very taxing, very tiring” and resulted in “lots of anxiety and lots of stress”. He believes Everton’s problems have also made it difficult for supporters to judge his work over the long term.
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“At the end of last season they thought I was a good fit,” he said. “Then they said I wasn’t a good fit. Then we got the points [deduction] and won four on the trot and I was the best fit in the world. I tried to have a bit of fun and said: ‘The Messiah’ but got misquoted and slaughtered for that even though I didn’t mean it literally. Then you’re not a fit and now I am a fit again. But that is life as a manager.
“Some just have a miraculous period where they fit regardless. There are certain managers at certain clubs who seem to get a really long lifeline where they fit. I made it clear when I got here that I have to earn the right to fit in here and I have to earn the right to be Everton’s manager and I still think I am doing that. I don’t take anything for granted, I can assure you.
“The highs and lows, the hero to zero as I call it, that’s part of the job. Here it’s more evident, quicker to go up and down and more drastic I think. It’s really quite sharp in that it goes from: ‘You know what you’re doing, no you don’t, yes you do.’ At other clubs it is less so but that’s what I’ve learned in my time here; not that I’m moaning about it in any way.”
The uncertainty over Everton’s financial future and proposed takeover by 777 Partners, now in its eighth month, means Dyche and the director of football, Kevin Thelwell, are unable to make definitive plans for next season. Idrissa Gana Gueye, Séamus Coleman and Ashley Young are among five senior players out of contract at the end of the season, when Dyche will enter the final 12 months of his deal.
Dyche was asked whether he had discussed his contract with Thelwell. “No, but I think he will be doing. Three weeks ago it was: ‘Don’t give him anything.’ But now it’s: ‘Give him a 27-year contract.’ That’s life at Everton!”
