Sean Dyche has played down talk of a crisis at Everton after the team’s poor start to the season, saying that it is far too early to be making judgements after only two games.
Everton have lost their opening two matches of the Premier League season: a narrow 1-0 loss to Fulham on the opening day and a more convincing 4-0 thrashing at the hands of Aston Villa last weekend.
They face the prospect of losing their opening three games of a league campaign for the first time since the 1990/91 season and, combined with another summer of tumult and an absence of signings, there is a familiar air of despondency amongst the Goodison fanbase.
However, Dyche believes a positive result can change everything and the visit of Wolverhampton Wanderers on Saturday followed by a trip to face Sheffield United, both also winless after two games, offers the chance for Everton to get off the mark and change the rhetoric.
“To be honest ever since I got here, everybody’s talked about us ‘needing a lift’ and words get thrown around like ‘crisis’, all these bad noises and negatives,” the Everton manager said.
“It’s just the way Everton's been for a number of months — years even. So it’s our job to change the story. It always starts on the pitch, with me and the team changing the rhetoric.
“We haven’t done that yet this season but we’re two games in. You can’t measure a season on two games, particularly after playing so well against Fulham, but you don’t get the win and it changes the story yet again. You win that and the story is a different one.”
'I know the parameters we're working with'
In what has been another turbulent week off the pitch for Everton, in which MSP Sports Capital has ended its interest in potential investment in the club, Dyche admitted his focus has remained on what he can control.
“It doesn’t really impact [us] in the sense that I know [what] the realities of the parameters are from a player point of view, signing them and working in the market," Dyche said.
“There are so many checks for deals at Premier League clubs or any company and investor — they don’t get done in a day or week. That is an ongoing view from the business side and I don’t get involved.
“We know we have to work hard in the market, find ways of creating deals because we don’t have a pot of gold. I knew that from when I got the job and have been working diligently with [Director of Football] Kevin Thelwell, scouts and various contacts to try and find the right players that can fit in and make us stronger.”
'Team showed spirit last season'
Dyche acknowledged the heavy defeat to Villa was a result of a “collective down day” whereby each of his players failed to turn up and lacked the necessary “edge and fight” needed to compete in this division.
Recalling the adversity from which Everton emerged last season and using the experiences of playing with pressure has formed the bulk of the manager’s message to the team ahead of a critical few games against prospective relegation contenders.
“I reminded them after the game [against Villa] the challenge last season was considerable,” he said. “They were really tough games to play in at the end of last season but we came through it. That’s got to be something that becomes engrained in you.
“They have got the fight, spirit, desire and quality to look after themselves and I said to them that ‘a very short while ago, you were going through some really tough games and intense pressure and came through it’”.
Striker Dominic Calvert-Lewin will miss the Wolves game after suffering a facial injury and will see a specialist about the issue on Friday, while winger Alex Iwobi has been ruled out for a few weeks with a hamstring problem.