The sobering reality over Sean Dyche’s half-time pep talk to his players, telling them that Everton “don’t know how to win” is that there is a strong element of truth to the Burnley manager’s damning words and he was only echoing what long-suffering Blues fans have feared for a long time now. On a wet and windswept night at Turf Moor, it was clear that man-for-man there was much more individual talent within the visitors’ ranks but as a collective unit they remain woefully less than the sum of their parts and a maddening habit for pressing the self-destruct button through costly individual errors is now seriously threatening to culminate a miserable season with the club’s first relegation since 1951.
This current Burnley side are no vintage Clarets and are one of the most technically-limited outfits in the Premier League. In the build-up to Wednesday night’s fixture, colleagues from other titles who have reported on Dyche’s side on a regular basis were laying it on thick to this correspondent about how bad Burnley are and how they’ve had their mini-revival but were now back in a slump. Even before the game kicked-off, it sounded eerily familiar to Norwich City in January – the defeat that cost Rafa Benitez his job.
Since then, Everton have completed an unwanted hat-trick of losing to teams in the bottom three after their reversals at Newcastle United and now Burnley. These were three golden opportunities to put breathing space between them and rivals in the drop zone but on each occasion it has been the Blues’ opponents, not them, who have risen to the occasion.
They don’t call these fixtures ‘six pointers’ for nothing but Everton continue to inflict upon themselves the double-whammy of missing out themselves while enabling those below them to close the gap. The Magpies’ 3-1 victory in what was Frank Lampard’s first Premier League fixture in charge, proved to be a true watershed moment for Eddie Howe’s side and they have subsequently charged up the table and away from danger, currently enjoying the relatively lofty heights of being six points above the Blues.
Who is to say that a potentially galvanised Burnley – swelled with renewed hope after their morale-boosting comeback win over Everton – won’t embark on a similar revival themselves now with a trip to Carrow Road next up on Sunday. The Blues though, look lamentably incapable of stringing together anything resembling a sequence of results.
Other than the 3-0 success over Leeds United, a result that increasingly looks like an anomaly and one firmly put into context by the Yorkshire side’s subsequent thrashings before Marcelo Bielsa’s sacking and a mere 108 seconds at St James’ Park, the 16 minutes that Everton found themselves ahead at Burnley is the only time they have been ahead in a Premier League fixture before stoppage time since the Watford capitulation back on October 23, a game that they somehow lost 5-2 despite being 2-1 up with 12 minutes to go.
There had been numerous warning signs over this Everton side’s character before then that go back several years – they infamously failed to come from behind to win a Premier League game during Marco Silva’s entire 18-month tenure – but the dramatic collapse against the Hornets, inspired by a hat-trick from former Blues striker Josh King, appears to have broken them. Many browbeaten Evertonians fear that it could be to a point beyond repair.
MOMENTS MISSED: Anthony Gordon fumes during Richarlison goal celebration as Mike Dean angers Vitalii Mykolenko at Everton
READ MORE: 'Absolutely horrendous' - Victor Anichebe sends blunt message to Everton board
Lampard, the Premier League’s greatest goalscoring midfielder during his own playing days, and a manager who at least achieved records that were ‘par for the course’ during his stints in charge of Derby County and Chelsea, claims he understands the emotions that apprehensive fans are going through and insists he is “giving everything to keep us in this league.” One factor that Lampard cannot control, and something that must be particularly galling for someone as talented as he was as a footballer, are the continued isolated mistakes though. This week alone there has been Alex Iwobi giving the ball away at West Ham United and Ben Godfrey shanking a clearance against Burnley.
While neither of those moments directly caused the opposition to score, that in itself highlights the depth of the problems as when one of their team-mates falters, there is nobody there to sense the danger and bail them out of trouble. Lampard also says: “Everyone is quick to tell me I’ve never been in a relegation battle – I suppose that’s a positive” but do his players know what is required in these crucial final nine matches of the campaign?
In contrast, Dyche and his charges have been here many times before. In almost a decade in charge at Burnley (over a period in which there have been eight managers at Goodison Park), he has twice led them to promotion to the Premier League and the club kept faith with him in between after they were relegated first time around. Hard graft over a number of years – culminating with European football in 2018, one place above Everton whose vacancy he had been linked to earlier in the season – prompted a pub in the shadow of Turf Moor to be renamed ‘The Royal Dyche’ and ensure the manager enjoys enough credit in the bank to survive seasons of struggle such as this.
The sign that hangs outside the aforementioned hostelry has the gaffer mocked up in the garb of Henry VIII and in a manner not dissimilar to the 16 th century tyrant king, he is an intimidating absolute ruler within his own fiefdom. Unlike the infamous monarch though, there is little chopping and changing with Dyche. His teams almost always deploy the same formation and the players, regardless of the fluctuations of form, are well-drilled to know their roles inside out.
Here is a manager, well within his rights, to attempt everything he can to try and bridge the gap between his own club, operating in the Premier League’s smallest market, and the division’s more moneyed outfits, including Everton who are understood to have the largest wage bill outside of the ‘big six.’ That includes trying every trick in the book both on and off the pitch and Dyche’s doubting of the Blues’ game management wasn’t just for the benefit of motivating his own team on the night.
A sly old red fox in sharing his thoughts with the wider world, the Burnley boss has managed to supplement a potentially season-saving victory with a bit of mind games that the likes of Sir Alex Ferguson or Jose Mourinho would have been proud of in terms of planting a seed of doubt in Everton minds for the run-in. Blues fans already feared that their team is mentally fragile but now other opponents could target it as a potential weakness and Dyche will hope that Lampard’s players themselves could become wracked with self-doubt.
Ultimately, there’s still almost a quarter of a season yet to play in terms of games to come but with those last nine fixtures truncated into a 45-day period starting with Manchester United at home on Saturday, Everton need to stop the rot quickly. Lampard himself has responded to Dyche’s comments but his players must let their football do the talking.
If they don’t then they’ll find themselves going to far more of the game’s less glamorous outposts on a regular basis next season in the dog-eat-dog world of the Championship where you have to scrap for every point. If they’re uncomfortable in their current predicament, how many of them would have the stomach for that fight?
