Former Everton midfielder Leon Osman believes Sean Dyche is the perfect manager to bring some much-needed stability to his old club.
When appointed as Frank Lampard's successor back in January, Dyche became the seventh permanent manager hired by majority shareholder Farhad Moshiri since he took over the club seven years ago.
Everton moved quickly to wrap up a deal for Dyche after failing to convince Marcelo Bielsa to take the job. The former Leeds United manager was Moshiri’s No.1 choice for the role, while chairman Bill Kenwright always favoured Dyche.
Lampard's last game in charge was a 2-0 league defeat by West Ham United, which kept Everton second-bottom on 15 points after 20 games, above Southampton on goal difference, and two points adrift of the safety zone.
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However, Dyche managed to win five of the 18 games he took charge of, including a 1-0 victory against Bournemouth on the final day of the season, to ensure Everton will once again be playing their football in the top-flight this season. And Osman, speaking exclusively to the Liverpool ECHO, believes that Dyche has all the attributes and principles that an Everton manager needs.
He said: "First and foremost, he was brought in to do a job and keep the club in the Premier League, and he accomplished it.
"Hats off because there wasn’t any place to come in. Confidence was near zero, and results had been dreadful. We were also without the ability to score goals.
"It was difficult circumstances, but we managed to get the job done. He managed to raise the players to a different type of feeling within the club.
"He’s done the first job, and he should be given the opportunity to do that from the start of the season and set those standards up right from the beginning.
"Get the core principles about how he wants to play into the team, and I think above all else, he seems like an Everton manager.
"I think he also seems like a man who can certainly bring a bit of stability to the club for the next couple of seasons; we hope so, and it is of course all results-dependent.
"What we need is a bit of stability for the next two or three seasons to be able to put our feet on the floor again and start building ourselves back up."
Everton’s players will return to Finch Farm later this week to commence their pre-season training programme, and Osman believes Dyche will benefit from a full campaign with his squad.
He said: "Every manager and every player needs a full pre-season. You will always benefit from it because your body is now tuned to play through the rigours of a season.
"You will have also spent loads of time on the pitch getting to know what the manager wants to do tactically.
"But above all else, fitness and how the manager wants to play. He needs to get as many players out there through the whole pre-season as possible.
"If you try and make every player do a pre-season exactly the same nowadays, you will get players breaking down.
"It is a difficult thing to get the whole team through pre-season up to the standards you want while also trying to do an individual programme.
"We know Dominic [Calvert-Lewin] might need an individual programme, but it is important that he gets through all five or six weeks of it because we will see a much better Everton from it."
Leon Osman was speaking to the Liverpool ECHO at Socios.com’s Everton Fan Token Cup, a football tournament for Toffees Fan Token holders at Goodison Park.
