Sean Dyche reacts to Everton job security question after talks with 777 Partners amid sack speculation
Sean Dyche says his meeting with 777 Partners contained “nothing” in relation to backing him as the Everton manager going forward as it was “way more casual than that”.
The Toffees boss was asked directly if he was “on the agenda” during the talks, at his pre-match press conference on Thursday (21 September) ahead of the Brentford game, and said it had instead been a matter of the potential buyers getting information from him on the “challenges” at the club.
Dyche indicated in the past week that last season had been the “hardest” time in his career, and that the finances were shorter than he had an anticipated in the summer, while the poor results to start the season has seen his job come in for questioning from fans and pundits alike.
Dyche said Thursday (1.38pm): “No, nothing about that, way more casual than that. More absorbing my thoughts. I’ve been here long enough to see some of the challenges that I think we all thought were there, and then I’ve learnt they are.
“How we’ve worked amongst the challenges, first of all to finish last season in the way we did, get that part of it done, and then what we’re trying to build from now on.
“So really, absorbing the information we were giving out and some of the feel of what’s going on, and some of the facts as well.”
Eye-opener
The indication currently is that 777 Partners are prepared to stick with Dyche based on the job he has done so far [The Athletic, 18 September], but for now they could hardly say anything else.
Since nobody knows whether they will get regulatory approval, although they are thought to be confident, a managerial change would only get onto the agenda once those hurdles are cleared.
It is surely an awkward conversation for Dyche to have with his potential new bosses to discuss the “challenges” he has been facing under the current one, when he doesn’t know for certain who will be paying his salary going forward.
While the manager has remained fairly diplomatic throughout his time in charge at Goodison Park, and clearly knew things were not all rosy when he arrived, he has suggested that there have been more issues to deal with behind the scenes than even he expected.
Ultimately he kept the club up on the final day of the season last term, which currently has to constitute a success, but overall his record hasn’t been glittering and the start to the new campaign has been very poor in terms of results.
He may be the best there is in offer for Everton right now so he needs to stick to his task of getting more out of a group of players who rarely seem to all perform at once.
A change seems unlikely for now, but then the takeover seemed somewhat unlikely not long ago and that seems to be rapidly advancing so nothing can be entirely ruled out.
In other Everton news, it has emerged that Farhad Moshiri rejected a financing solution for the stadium when it was available that would have avoided one of the current issues “hoovering up cash”.