Everton manager Sean Dyche would love to produce the kind of tiki-taka football that Pep Guardiola’s teams are renowned for but he plays to his side’s strengths and can turn Amadou Onana into a Premier League star, reckons Steven Defour.
During an appearance on Sky Sports’ Monday Night Football earlier this season, Dyche insisted he remains unfazed by being typecast when it came to his supposed football philosophy, declaring: “What I’ve learned down the years is: why fight the box you’re put into?” However, Defour, who Dyche hailed as the most-talented player he handled during almost a decade in charge of Burnley, believes the now Blues boss has ambitions to be more expansive but has always been smart enough to be pragmatic.
He told the ECHO: “A lot of people think with Sean, everything is straightforward, long balls, second balls, ‘we’re going to duel’, but he likes to play football as well. When it’s the moment to do it or you have the qualities to do it, he wants you to play – just don’t over-think it or over-play it.
