Style has been a talking point since Everton’s draw against Fulham but Dyche knows he will be judged on results – and says he has to focus on getting them above all else
For Sean Dyche, it comes down to results. That is not to say that he does not have expectations about performances. He has taken every opportunity since the final whistle last weekend to stress that he did not like what he saw for most of the match against Fulham.
But while for many the talking point since that draw has been the style of the display and how tough it was to watch, for him the takeaway has been the resilience that saw his team turn a bad day into a good point with one final act of stoppage time stubbornness.
Both viewpoints are justified. Everton is a club in contradiction. It is perfectly legitimate for there to be a desire for an historic, emotional farewell to Goodison Park that is topped off with entertaining football. But while the light may be in sight, the club is still navigating the final stretches of the tunnel it burrowed as it became engulfed in chaos in recent years, much of it self-inflicted.
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That context – the ownership, financial and regulatory drama and the consequences that have flowed from mistakes made by those around him and before him – is still relevant for Dyche, for whom results are “the most exact science of football”.
Asked whether the perception of the performances he oversees was something he focused on, he said: “If I could do it in a way that is magical, I would do. But you have got to win. On days when we are not magical but on the days when we are good I think ‘fair play’, I think we deserve the pats on the back we get. Whether that is tactically good or just good.
“And on the days when we are not I will hold my hands up, I’ll try and go ‘OK’. I did that last game – I thought we were nowhere near it. But I thought at Ipswich it was [the performance of] a real Premier League outfit doing a Premier League outfit’s job, I thought.
“Against Liverpool last season I thought it was very tactically astute. There’s other games when we haven’t been. I think I’m pretty fair with my own assessment. You have to be, I think, because if not you are kidding yourself and you get found out. I think I’m pretty fair on that.”
Dyche knows he cannot afford to worry about perception above all other things – particularly not with the cards he has been dealt. After another summer where the approach was one of savviness as the club sought to bring in transfer fees, reduce the wage bill and fall into compliance with financial regulations, he has been left with a small squad and one that has already endured bouts of illness and injury.
“Finance usually wins”, he said at Finch Farm ahead of the trip to Southampton. And survival matters – for all that he insists he would like to do otherwise, at Everton it has been all about survival. He has overseen two seasons in which that has been achieved against the odds and is on a five game unbeaten run as he tries to take the club to the cusp of a new era. However results are achieved he knows any conversation about his role at Everton would not even reach the merits of pragmatism versus style should the club not enter its new dawn in the Premier League.
And for a manager who places importance on “stats and facts”, that Everton are still in the top flight is just one that he sees as evidence of success.
Another is that, for all the moments in his managerial career when style has been a talking point, he is still in a job. Not only that but he has outlasted most others.
Surprised to learn this week that he was now 14th on the list of managers who had overseen the most Premier League games, he said the feat was one that he felt pride in.
Of the 323 matches he has now overseen, he said: “Someone wants me to keep doing the job, whoever it may be. That speaks for itself in my world. It ain’t easy to get that many.”
