Sean Dyche is confident Everton’s season will not be derailed by a 10-point penalty for breaching the Premier League’s financial rules but has warned his players they cannot rely on the club’s call-up to save them from another relegation battle.
The Everton manager said he was shocked and aggrieved by an independent commission’s decision to impose the biggest sporting sanction in Premier League history for £19.5m of overspending in 2021-22. Dyche was ill on holiday in Dubai when Everton’s director of football, Kevin Thelwell, announced the penalty. He described the cut as both disproportionate and unfair.
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Dyche addressed the first-team squad at Everton’s Finch Farm training ground after returning from international duty on Friday morning. Players reacted to last Friday’s news by sharing defiant messages in WhatsApp groups. Their determination to maintain the momentum and get the club out of trouble was conveyed to the manager at Friday’s meeting after a run of six wins in nine games in all competitions lifted Everton to 14th, before slipping to 19th. .
“The sentiment has been very positive in terms of building on the mentality that has been there recently,” Dyche said. “We all talked about it, said that this does not change the situation and that it develops independently of the current situation. The players’ thoughts are clear. They have their own WhatsApp group and when the news comes out they immediately put it there: ‘Yes guys, just one more challenge, this is how we will handle it’. The group is taking ownership, and that’s a powerful thing.
“I got this feeling from them: ‘We don’t let anything disrupt what we’ve built and we don’t let anything get in our way.’ You can’t guarantee it makes a difference [to players’ resolve] Because we haven’t played any games yet. All I know is that the players know what we’re doing. “They’ve probably been telling me about it for the last six weeks.”
Everton’s objection to the 10-point deduction will be evaluated by a different three-person panel before the end of the season. But Dyche wants his team to forget this objection and accept the fact that they are bottom of the Premier League with four points. He believes this perspective will help Everton focus on moving out of the relegation zone.
On his chances of survival, Dyche said: “I never trusted my own ability, the skill of my team or the ability of the players. My self-confidence hasn’t diminished since I’ve been here and let’s face it, I’ve had some pretty tough times. But it’s not just about trust. You have to win matches and it’s just another big challenge.
“This is an ad hoc thing right now because we don’t know what the appeal will bring, we don’t know how it will change things again. But until then, I made it clear to the players that there is no guarantee that anything will change, so we have to stick to what’s happening now as if it were real. It may change, but until it does, we must hold on to this reality. There is no guarantee that what has happened before will guarantee what will happen next. “We have to keep pushing like we did before because we lost 10 points and we have to get them back as quickly as possible.”
Everton fans are planning a series of protests against the Premier League for their home game against Manchester United on Sunday; In this case, a win could take Dyche’s team out of the bottom three. After several years of division at Goodison Park, the suspension created a collective siege mentality for the fanbase and club hierarchy that Dyche wanted his team to exploit.
He said: “I wasn’t expecting [for Sunday] Anyway, because obviously we’re in good form; forget all this. But I’ll be surprised if the Evertonians aren’t right about the song. Knowing what I’m doing, I’d be very surprised if they weren’t. I don’t know them yet, but I’m learning about the Evertonians and how committed they are to the club and the cause. My knowledge on this subject is gradually deepening and I would be very surprised if they were not with us. It doesn’t guarantee you’ll win, but it gives you a better chance when they’re right behind the players saying, ‘Come on then, let’s start over.’
“I feel like the mean fans who have the depth of knowledge about Everton and remember the heady years and what it was built on (not every Evertonian just knows the heady years) remember when they had to fight and work to build a team and a mentality. I think that “They can feel it again. That’s what I think. I think they feel we’re getting back to worldliness, to a determined group of Everton players who are really ready to try.”
Dyche declined to comment on the implications of Everton’s suspension for Manchester City, who have been accused of 115 financial breaches by the Premier League and deny any wrongdoing, and Chelsea, who are also under investigation by football authorities.