Abdoulaye Doucoure back training with Everton squad under Sean Dyche after Frank Lampard banishment
Abdoulaye Doucoure and Michael Keane are both back in the Everton first-team training picture under Sean Dyche after being banished by Frank Lampard.
The senior duo were axed from the first-team picture by previous boss Lampard after a falling out in training, and looked set for the Goodison Park exit either in January or in the summer.
However after Lampard was sacked, neither player ended up leaving the club in January and Dyche has admitted that everyone has got a clean slate with him being the new manager.
“He [Dyche] made clear that everyone starts with a clean slate under him,” wrote Liverpool ECHO journalist Joe Thomas (3 February).
“In the final days of Lampard’s rule there were murmurs of discontent and of a fallout that led to Abdoulaye Doucoure training alone. Whatever happened under his predecessor, he stressed that under him everyone has a fresh start.”
He then clarified on his personal Twitter account that Doucoure is back training with the first-team.
Fresh
Considering the position we’re in currently in the Premier League and with our squad, there was no alternative really for Dyche.
The squad is already weak as it is, so isolating two senior players from the group for issues that had nothing to do with him would just be foolish – especially since he knows Keane well from working together with him at Burnley.
As for Doucoure, he’s only got six months left on his deal at the club but the talk until recently suggested that he was keen and happy to stay at the club beyond that.
Whether that happens or not remains to be seen, but he will surely be given an opportunity by Dyche to earn that new deal and that starts on the training ground to get his spot in the team back ahead of Amadou Onana, Idrissa Gueye and Alex Iwobi.
We need everyone to pull together to get Everton out of this hole, and Dyche is doing all the right things so far to get everyone on the same page and pulling in the same direction.