Sean Dyche has said Everton should not dwell on the past in regards to Anthony Gordon and focus on the fight for their Premier League future when Newcastle visit Goodison Park on Thursday.
Gordon returns to his boyhood club for the first time since joining Newcastle, 24 hours before Dyche was appointed manager in the closing days of the January transfer window. Everton’s failure to reinvest the £45m fee in their relegation-threatened squad may have caused more consternation among supporters than the sale itself, but Dyche says he has no regrets over losing Gordon and his team cannot afford any distractions against opponents chasing a Champions League place.
“To lose a player like that, there must have been a reason for it, but by the time I got here it was done,” said Dyche. “I’m learning more and more about the depth of the club, the good and the bad, but it’s still not relevant. It’s only relevant from the day I came in. I couldn’t affect that [sale] and we couldn’t affect the transfer window. I saw how hard everyone was working but once it’s done you have to move forward.
“I get the feeling sometimes there’s lots of noise about the past but it’s too late, it’s done, so now it’s about going forward. Manage what it is now, not manage all the noise of the past, because it is done. My job is to focus constantly on what we can do. I can’t change Everton’s history but I can change the future.”
Abdoulaye Doucouré is available, having served a costly three-match suspension in which Everton collected one point and produced two poor displays, against Manchester United and Fulham. Dyche denied, however, that Doucouré owes the team for raising a hand to Harry Kane’s face and inviting a red card in the 1-1 draw with Tottenham.
“I don’t see how he has cost us massively,” said the Everton manager. “You could apply that to any player. Dom [Dominic Calvert-Lewin] has been missing for a while. Has he cost us massively?” It was put to Dyche that Calvert-Lewin’s absence through injury does not compare with Doucouré’s stupidity. He replied: “He was not stupid, it was a moment in time when the referee had blown his whistle, someone came through with a very firm tackle and he responded to it. That is not being stupid, that is a natural reaction.
“If you ask players to play wholeheartedly then now and again it boils over, so therefore I have no problem with players doing that. I don’t want them to do it, but if it happens and I think it is an honest reaction – that is the key.”
