Sean Dyche has the respect of Everton fans but will never have their love

Manager is entitled to feel under-appreciated for his work in keeping struggling side up, but supporters want to dream of greater things

Sean Dyche has earned respect for his work at Everton. What he has never been able to win is love. It is unlikely that will ever come his way at Goodison Park.
Dyche has proven to be the perfect fit for Everton’s predicament. His problem is that he will never convince the fans he is more than an emergency, short-term response to consecutive relegation threats, so it only needs a bad result or performance for cracks to appear in a marriage of convenience.
Fundamentally, there is a personality clash which the better days have failed to reconcile. When the criticism flies, Dyche understandably sounds hurt when judged on the basis of a poor 90 minutes (or a terrible final nine minutes in the case of the last home defeat by Bournemouth) rather than the broader body of work.
Dyche’s recent reference to the fickle elements of the Goodison support went down particularly badly, the highs at the end of last season, especially a memorable Merseyside derby win, giving way to jeers after the opening day defeat by Brighton in this one.
“The trouble with Dyche is he makes it sound like he is doing us a favour being here,” is a comment I regularly hear from my Everton-supporting friends and family.
In their minds, Dyche ought to be more grateful that he is the Everton manager because he would not be there but for the owner’s mismanagement. It was not so long ago that Everton had Carlo Ancelotti on the touchline and they were dreaming of Champions League football.
Supporters want to feel the club is moving forward. Dyche has a habit of issuing blunt reality checks and reminding everyone how tough the situation has been and still is, so there is an ongoing sense of the club working week to week in a grim holding pattern.
Neither Dyche nor the Everton supporters are wrong to assume their current positions.
Given Everton’s plight when Dyche arrived, and the circumstances in which he has worked, he is entitled to believe there should be more appreciation for his work.
The club were 19th in the Premier League when he took over in January 2023, but he turned around what looked like a hopeless position to secure top-flight status in the last game. The predictions of doom were even greater when Everton were twice docked Premier League points last season.
Everton would have been comfortably placed all season and finished mid-table level with Brighton but for the eight-point deduction for breaking profitability and sustainability rules.
Internally and externally, no one can assess the past 20 months at Everton and argue against the fact that Dyche has performed admirably, and excelled in a situation in which many others would have wilted.
Despite another terrible start to this campaign, with many anticipating the losing streak will continue at Aston Villa this weekend, there is no chance Everton will be relegated under Dyche. He has proven his capacity to navigate teams through a 38-game campaign and get the most from his team, more often than not having them punch above their weight. There are at least three Premier League sides who are worse than Everton.
They could lose the next two league games against Villa and Leicester and it will still be wrong to panic and sack the manager. Everton’s director of football, Kevin Thelwell, is an ally of Dyche and will resist making an emotional decision, even though there are growing noises from a section of the supporters that if the current run continues the club should consider bringing back David Moyes.
Whether the same can be said of Farhad Moshiri given his track record is another matter, but the majority shareholder seems more preoccupied with selling his shares and cannot afford to sack another manager. With the club hoping to change hands in the near future, it would be illogical to appoint someone else given that a new owner will have their own vision for the club.
The bizarre comments from Everton bidder John Textor underline what Dyche would be up against.
“I like that he has bought the big, tough Irish kid Jake O’Brien, but does he like [Brazilian forwards] Igor Jesus or Luis Henrique? Does he have an ambition to coach that sort of profile?” said Textor, reaffirming the idea of Dyche as an old-school coach.
Pragmatic Evertonians understand the wisdom of keeping faith with Dyche until the club is sold. Once Everton are more secure on and off the field, even Dyche will appreciate the natural evolution will most likely mean he moves on, probably with more regard in retrospect for this period in charge than he is receiving while in the job.
Everton desperately need a fresh start when they leave Goodison and it is hard to envision a world in which the fans believe Dyche represents that.
That is tough on Dyche given his work over the last two seasons, but between now and the end of the season the Goodison nostalgia will move into overdrive even though a generation of fans cannot wait to leave. In leaving the stadium, they hope to escape a traumatic era. Only those supporters of my generation and older can remember the glory days of the mid-80s. For the rest, the most memorable games are a few Merseyside derby wins and the great escapes when the Goodison factor fought off relegation against Wimbledon, Crystal Palace and Bournemouth.
Without massive changes, there is also cause for Everton to be anxious about what will happen immediately after the move. No side relishes going to Goodison, but history shows that it can take time to settle into a new home, visitors finding it more accommodating if they are not subjected to a bear-pit atmosphere. But the new stadium is still a much-needed source of hope.
Aston Villa are proof that no matter how bad the situation seems, it is possible to recover. They are in the tier of English clubs I rank alongside Everton – giants who have spent too much of their modern history sleeping.
Villa were in the Championship five years ago, and now they are in the Champions League because of smart recruitment on the pitch and in the manager’s office.
Everton fans are entitled to see how Villa have been run, observe Unai Emery masterminding their improvement, and ask those at the top of their club, ‘why can’t that be us?’
In fairness, Dyche is under no illusions about that and must deal with the perception of what Everton should be and reality of where they actually are. He said when he took over that he recognised how and why he got the job and suggested that if they were challenging for European places he would never have been approached, and if a rich owner arrives he will probably be replaced.
For now, there is no Premier League coach more suited to the immediate task at hand, laying a foundation for a successor who will hopefully take over in more favourable circumstances.
Longer term – and through no fault of his own – the Dyche era is being stomached more than acclaimed.
He is in the final year of his Everton contract and it is obvious that no matter how highly he is regarded internally, handing Dyche an extension to lead the club into its new stadium will be as tough a sell to supporters as Moshiri’s efforts to find a club buyer.
Chris Bascombe