Sean Dyche has been given a golden opportunity to get Everton’s new Premier League campaign off to a good start but must avoid the same problems that blighted the early weeks of last season.
Everton took until the seventh match to find a first win - when Neal Maupay scored his only Blues goal to overcome West Ham after a difficult start under then boss Frank Lampard.
The beginning of the upcoming season presents plenty of chances for early points for any side looking to avoid a relegation battle. Yet in order for Everton to be in the best position to take advantage they need a settled side with any new recruits in from as early a stage as possible.
Last summer, the failure to adequately replace Richarlison left Everton reliant on Dominic Calvert-Lewin, whose knee injury on the eve of the campaign left Lampard without a trusted, recognised striker until the signing of Maupay before the trip to Leeds United. He was then left unable to play at Elland Road due to registration regulations and when he was able to start was hampered by a lack of a full pre-season.
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Similarly, the final day arrivals of James Garner and Idrissa Gueye came too late to help Lampard solve a crisis in the middle of his midfield that forced him to deploy a makeshift pairing of Alex Iwobi and Abdoulaye Doucoure for the first two games of the season.
Dyche will no doubt maintain there are no easy games and that - as he repeatedly insisted last season - the only table that matters is the one at the final whistle on the last day of the schedule. Yet those around him will surely welcome a start that features an opening eight games in which Arsenal are the only one of last season’s Champions League-chasing sides Everton will face - and Mikel Arteta’s team will visit Goodison Park for that fixture, where they lost what was Dyche’s first game at the helm back in February.
The start will not be simple - for the second consecutive season Everton travel to Aston Villa on the second weekend of the campaign - and games against two of the newly-promoted sides will prove tough matches against clubs looking to make an immediate impression. But if Everton are to avoid a third successive relegation battle then Dyche will know the trip to Sheffield United and visit of Luton Town are crucial opportunities to launch a bid for mid-table. After a lengthy delay to registering a first win last time, those matches - as well as the prospect of hosting Fulham and Wolverhampton Wanderers in the first three fixtures - provide a potential early foothold in the season, tough as those opponents may be.
If Dyche is unable to secure safety until the final weeks then his run-in throws up two potential relegation six-pointers. Everton finish at Arsenal so will need to have the job done by the last weekend. Before that they travel to Luton and then host Sheffield United, two of the teams they could be fighting to survive ahead of. Everything should be put in place to give him the best chance of avoiding another year in which Goodison Park's famous stands host frayed nerves and desperately-needed battle cries once again in the final weeks.
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