Robbie Savage: Everton boss Sean Dyche would have won Premier League if he swapped jobs with Pep Guardiola
Robbie Savage believes Everton manager Sean Dyche would have won the Premier League if he had swapped jobs with Pep Guardiola, but the Manchester City boss wouldn’t have saved Burnley from relegation.
Dyche has taken the reigns at Goodison Park amid turmoil both on and off the pitch, as fans continue to vent their anger at the board and, more directly, Farhad Moshiri.
However, pundit Savage, while writing in his weekly column for The Mirror (Friday 3 February), claimed that Dyche will save Everton from relegation this season and led a rave review of the former Clarets manager.
“I can’t think of a current manager who has attracted more snobbery than Dyche,” he wrote.
“But at the so-called People’s Club, I believe he will become a man of the people. It’s a mystery why big clubs were so reluctant to take a punt on Dyche after he took Burnley into Europe on the smallest budget in the Premier League.
“If he had swapped jobs with Pep Guardiola, I would have expected Dyche to win the title with Manchester City’s squad at his disposal – but I’m not sure Pep, one of the greatest managers of all time, would have kept Burnley up with the same set of Clarets players.”
Bold call
Although many Everton fans will be pleased that the club have got Dyche through the doors in the last week, Savage might have gone a little over the top in his estimations of the Englishman here.
Winning a Premier League is one almighty feat, and dozens of world-class managers have failed to lead their respective sides through a successful title charge.
The job Dyche did do at Burnley, though, was quite simply immense. On a purse-strings budget, the now Everton boss got every ounce of quality out of his players and even produced a stellar campaign that ended in European qualification.
Could Guardiola have achieved this feat with the same set of players? I’m not so sure.
Although Guardiola is arguably one of the best managers of all time, he depends on his players having a high level of technical ability and skill, something that was lacking from the Clarets squad.
You can’t help but feel the Spaniard would have attempted too much, too quickly, and this would have resulted in a downturn in form. Either way, it is promising to see pundits such as Savage wax lyrical about Everton’s new boss.