If the defeat to Fulham marked the end of his honeymoon period as Everton manager, nine words in one sentence of Sean Dyche’s post-match press conference proved chilling.
Typically the Blues boss didn’t try and sugar-coat what was much more than a bad day at the office for his side when he observed: “Today it reverted back to before we were here.” A return to the ‘bad old Everton’, the team that ended Rafael Benitez’s brief but loveless marriage with one win in his last 13 Premier League games, ensured Frank Lampard never made it to his first anniversary after finishing with one win in 12 Premier League matches and in between, came disgustingly close to a first relegation since 1951.
During that period, after what proved to be the last victory as Burnley manager, Dyche revealed that in his half-time team talk, he’d told his players when trailing 2-1 that this Blues side “don’t know how to win” and the Clarets duly came back to triumph 3-2. Saturday marked a year to the day since Dyche’s nine-and-a-half year reign at Turf Moor came to an abrupt halt on Good Friday 2022 but while he worked miracles on a shoestring budget in what was the top flight’s smallest market, the demands at a football giant such as Everton are far greater.
