Sean Dyche needs every penny as Anthony Gordon departs Everton for Newcastle – BBC Sport journalist
Sean Dyche needs “every penny” from the sale of Anthony Gordon to Newcastle in order to strengthen his Everton team, says Phil McNulty.
The Toffees confirmed the departure of the 21-year-old academy product to St James’ Park earlier on Sunday (29 January), with the fee reported to be £40million, rising to £45million [Sky Sports, 29 January].
With Sean Dyche still to be officially announced as Frank Lampard’s replacement he doesn’t have much time to add to his new squad, but will need the proceeds from losing an important talent in order to bring in replacements.
Reacting on Twitter after Gordon’s exit was made official BBC Sport’s McNulty wrote: “Very interesting to see how this own pans out.
“Very decent price for Everton but Eddie Howe will think he can improve on the natural talent.
“Sean Dyche will hopefully be given every penny of that money because he will need it.
No doubt
McNulty generally hasn’t pulled any punches with his assessment of the situation at Goodison Park, and Dyche will struggle to improve it if he is expected to work solely with players already in the building.
He is certainly expected to implement a more organised system than his predecessor, but given Lampard was struggling to get much of anything out of these players all too often lately, and since Gordon is no longer an option, it would be to take a major risk to run with what they’ve got from this point forward.
Buying in January, especially in the dying hours, is far from the ideal position to be operating in the transfer market, but the mayhem that can unfold on deadline day does leave opportunities if you have cash to spend.
All too often in the past year Everton haven’t had it, but a decent amount of money has now just come in so if it can be turned around straight away to land two or three players that Dyche feels he can get a tune out of there will be some renewed hope.
If it doesn’t happen then it will entirely be down to the former Burnley boss’ tactical and motivational ability, which is underrated, but whether it is strong enough to overhaul the Toffees’ season is yet to be seen.