Sean Dyche's Disjointed and Misfit Football

At the risk of being told by the ‘bright sparks’ on here that there is nothing new here, I am going to say of course there is nothing new, it’s the same set of problems that continue to dog our season.  

I will also say that definitely the manager is to blame and it is not the players. The manager picks the team and the tactics and, if it is not working, it is his responsibility to correct things. 

We have some decent players but they are not playing well enough as a unit compared with most other teams in the Premier League and that makes them look as individuals worse than they are.  Dyche makes bad decisions that affect the performance of individual players and the team as a whole.  

A good example of this is Gueye. With Mangala, he looked to have been forming a decent partnership in the last two games away to Southampton and West Ham Utd and I was looking forward to seeing what they could do together in a home game. 

But Dyche thought differently and wanted to squeeze Doucouré into the team. Doucouré does not have the skill set to play a conventional midfield role. His control is poor, his passing is poor and his performance was poor. Not only that, it affected Gueye’s performance.

Gueye was still working hard to win the ball and set things up but there was too much on his shoulders to be the playmaker and his standard of distribution dropped from the high of the last two games. It is clear as day that Gueye plays better with a player like Mangala or Garner alongside him.

This was down to Dyche. If he wants Doucouré in the team, it’s either at Number 10 (bearing in mind there is a justifiable call to play Ndiaye in the Number 10 role, or McNeil) or play him on the right (another problem position), where his energy would help our right back defensively and he could cut in when going forward, and give Calvert-Lewinsome much-needed support.

Doucouré’s technical ability is just not good enough for centre-midfield. There’s plenty of endeavour and effort from him and, if he does play, it has to be higher up the pitch. Why Dyche doesn’t know this is a complete mystery.

Doucouré does not enhance centre-midfield, he makes it worse and this then affects the whole team. In my opinion, this one stupid managerial pick affected the team's performance against Brentford massively. This is not a hindsight thing; like many other Evertonians, as soon as I heard the team line-up, my heart sank.  I knew it was an awful decision by Dyche.

Thousands of Blues knew the Mangala - Gueye pairing was a much better choice but our £5M-a-year manager didn’t.  If Dyche had picked Mangala, not Doucouré, to play next to Gueye, I am positive the team would have performed better than it did.  Getting the team selection right is everything. One change can make all the difference and, if a player feels good about the team and what the manager is telling him, it has a positive effect.

Our team play is disjointed and it is similar to 1983. The team then, containing players like Peter Reid, Andy Gray, Graham Sharp, Adrian Heath, and Kevin Sheedy, were booed off after a home game against Coventry that finished 0-0. The team looked devoid of ideas and no one was impressing. Most Evertonians at that time thought we had a team full of misfits.

But then Howard Kendall got his act together. Reid, who had been in and out of the team, was kept in; Mountfield and Ratcliffe were paired together and kept together; Stevens was preferred to Harper at right-back and was allowed to have a run in the team; Gray started doing what he was good at; and Trevor Steven came back from injury.

Suddenly, the average players looked good and the good players looked very good and, a little over a year later, all the players looked great – all down to the manager doing the right things, and of course Colin Harvey being given the job of Kendall’s assistant helped too!

Our current crisis cannot be blamed on the players.  It is down to the management and, with just a few sensible changes, things could improve.  But Dyche is not for changing and that is why he needs to go.

I personally think playing the 39-year-old Ashley Young at right-back in the Premier League is bizarre. Yes, he has played okay recently… but I am very concerned with the games coming up that he will be cruelly exposed.

Dyche could have stuck with Roman Dixon at right-back after his competent debut (in very difficult circumstances) and we could now have an excellent, young and pacey player there, putting in good attacking performances for us.

Patterson could have been brought in, if Seamus Coleman has never been ready. I would rather have a young right-back learning from his mistakes while making something happen going forward than a 39-year-old who is constantly one slow tackle away from a sending-off – It is ridiculous!

I would give anything for Dyche to prove me wrong and get some good results before Christmas but I think we will now sink. His disjointed and misfit football will now see us sink deeper and deeper into the relegation mire. 

The crazy thing about Dyche’s negative set-up is he can’t even get that right and not only do we give up far too much possession but also far too many chances to the opposition. The best two chances on Saturday fell to Brentford!

I went to Sligo in the summer to watch our first pre-season friendly. I wanted to see Everton play in Ireland, and where Dixie Dean once played. It was a great day; great to see so many Blues in Sligo, many Irish but a good few from Liverpool. I loved being there but the game shocked me.

I knew the players would be short of match fitness so I thought they would just pass the ball around and make the ball do the work. But no, the football was dreadful and it was embarrassing to see the team struggle to pass a ball against Sligo in a friendly. It was a sign of things to come.

My choice of manager is easy – Leighton Baines with Lee Carsley.  I believe Baines to be a very astute coach. I would take common sense and know-how over experience any day of the week.

Baines knows the club from top to bottom, knows the players, knows what the supporters want and, with Carsley, I am positive the team would improve performances and ultimately results. And we wouldn’t need to part with £5M a year!

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