Troy Deeney, who played for Sean Dyche at Watford, has spoken out on the leadership with the Everton side and made a bold transfer claim about squad members
One of Sean Dyche’s former players reckons certain members of the Everton squad expected to be heading out of the Goodison Park exit door this summer. But now the transfer window has closed, he has backed the Blues boss forge an environment to “start picking up results” again.
Troy Deeney played under Dyche during his first managerial role at Watford, where he steered the Hornets to 11th place in the Championship in 2011/12 – their highest finish for four years – but was then dismissed due to a change of ownership.
Everton have lost their opening three Premier League fixtures with thrashings against Brighton & Hove Albion (3-0) and Tottenham Hotspur (4-0) being followed by an agonising 3-2 home defeat to Bournemouth last Saturday.
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The Blues broke the competition record for the latest a side had led 2-0 only to lose a game with the Cherries not netting their first goal until the 87th minute. D
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Deeney, 36, has been concerned with what he’s seen in several of Everton’s matches so far but like many, he is still shocked with how things unravelled in their most recent fixture.
Speaking on the Seaman Says podcast via Betway, Deeney said: “Obviously the gaffer is there, Dychey, and I always want to support him. I spoke to him last week because I did the Spurs game and they were downright awful.
“Half the team tried to press, half the team tried to sit in. Jordan Pickford’s trying to play out from the back, gets caught.
“The one that people saw was for the goal, but he got caught four times before that and got away with it. It was coming.
“I did the Doncaster game and in the first half, Doncaster could have scored two or three and you were like: ‘This doesn’t look good.’
“When they’ve gone 2-0 up [against Bournemouth], I thought the gaffer had got into them this week. I thought that win at Doncaster had helped and then they lose 3-2 in three minutes.
“Sean Dyche’s interview, that was someone who’s annoyed because he normally takes the rap for his team. This is just my interpretation.
“He’s literally saying: ‘We didn’t run, we didn’t tackle and no-one took accountability’. People were trying overlaps at 2-2, trying to win the game.
“They’ve got Pickford, they’ve got Michael Keane, they’ve got all these internationals throughout their team, and no one went: ‘Let’s get hold of this. Even at 2-1, We just don’t lose this game’.”
Everton’s back five against Bournemouth were all internationals with 196 caps and 1,240 Premier League appearances between them.
And Deeney reckons the senior pros in the side should have taken control of the situation. He said: “Sometimes people take a huddle before kick-off. No one did that. It was just going through the motions and then they lose.
“The international guys should be going: ‘Right, give me the ball.’. You want someone to step up, someone to calm it or even someone to smash someone.
“Sometimes it does take someone to make a big tackle, and everyone goes: ‘Okay, we’re settled now.’
“With that level of player, somebody has to relax. What is leadership? When things are going easy, leadership is everyone. When it’s at its hardest, somebody asks for the ball, or takes a yellow to really just settle everything down.
“Who’s that person? Pickford is the obvious one, England international. (James) Tarkowski has been the captain, Michael Keane was on, Seamus Coleman was on. When you start saying these kind of names, they’ve all been there and done it.”
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In the programme notes for the final home game of last season, Everton director of football Kevin Thelwell told the supporters that “players will be sold” over the summer.
And Deeney believes that some of the Blues side thought they’d be elsewhere by now but with the transfer window having now closed, he has backed Dyche to start getting the best out of the squad.
He said: “I don’t know this, but I think a lot of them probably expected to move this summer. And now the international break has come at a perfect time for Sean Dyche, because if you always notice with the gaffer, he has this awful start, the window shuts, international break.
“He’ll have gone: ‘Right, it’s us versus the world now, so you can’t go anywhere. Even if you do want to go somewhere, you’ve got to do well for us so knuckle down’.
“And then they’ll start picking up results again. It just happens like that.”