Up until we ruined it late on Sunday, this had been shaping up to be one hell of a weekend. More dropped points for Chelsea and Arsenal and the usual late disappointment for Everton against Bournemouth. Our result put a downer on things but overall it’s still pretty good as the only team to make up ground on us was Forest.
We had that travesty at Spurs and it was a pretty low few days. And then Everton let Dyche go. I did not see that coming at all. There hadn’t even been any rumours about it, because let’s face it, you’d have to be a fucking idiot to allow the man best equipped to keep a dogshit group of players in the league to walk away. He’s done it twice already, but he’s been denied the chance to make it a hat-trick and you know what, I bet he’s relieved to be out of there. His reputation has not been harmed by any of this, he is who everyone thinks he is and he’ll have no trouble getting another job. And wherever he ends up will be a better job than Everton.
I don’t dislike Dyche at all and I bear him no ill will. He doesn’t bother me. What you see is what you get with him and he’s mostly ok, a fairly uncomplicated man with no side to him. Considering he’s been managing Everton, he’s not really said or done much to wind us up since he’s been there and he’s never really been taken in by all that usual Everton bullshit they feed their managers and players with. He’s remained fairly normal. As normal as a man who eats worms can be, anyway.
I wonder if the final straw was what he said this week about the run they’ve been on? It was a bizarre thing to say and out of character for Dyche who isn’t one of the bullshit merchants. “It’s not a bad run on paper if you add wins to it”. To be fair, that’s fucking amazing and initially I thought it was a fake quote. It was legit though, and I wonder if he was deliberately taking the piss because he knew what was coming.
The only beef I have with Dyche is that he kept Everton up twice in seasons when the quality of the players at his disposal were probably worse than some of the teams that went down. There are very few managers who are comfortable getting elbow deep in shit and not complaining about it. He’s the reason Everton are still in the top flight, and without him all bets are off now. They genuinely could go down. With him, there was zero chance they’d get relegated, but those new owners clearly think they know best and they’ve sacked him.
They’re a point above the relegation zone and they sacked the man best equipped to keep them out of it. I’m actually giddy about this. I’d given up all hope on them getting relegated but this brings it right back into play as far as I’m concerned. Could it finally happen?
Just when I thought I was out….. they pull me back in.
Their loss at Bournemouth was predictable but it was nowhere near as hilarious as the one they suffered at Goodison earlier in the season. Or the time they lost in this stadium a few years ago, the day of the infamous “Lonsdale Pitch Invader”. They lost it late again, just not THAT late. Still funny like. Last on MOTD again by the way. Standard.
The only reason they survived as long as they did was because Pickford was making loads of saves again. That and the fact the ref and VAR ignored a stonewall pen when Mangala booted Outtara in the stomach. The Bournemouth forward headed the ball and Mangala didn’t see him coming and kicked him right in the belly. Obvious penalty, but it was ignored.
Brooks won it with a nice volley from a lovely Kerkez cross. Everton didn’t have a shot on target again. Eight of the last ten games they’ve drawn a blank, which is mad. What’s madder is Wolves somehow let in four against them.
One of the most wild stats I’ve seen recently was the open play goals one for 2024. We were top with over a hundred. Forest were second bottom and Everton were below them in last place, but the wildest part was that they have less than half the open play goals that Forest have scored. I often joke about how they can only score from corners, but it’s basically true.
Is that Dyche’s fault? They seem to think it is, but look at the players he’s working with. Any time they have anyone half decent they have to sell them, so he’s rotating two pensioners at right back, his left back is shite, the midfield is full of nobodies and he’s relying on a giraffe up front because the one quality forward he has is never fit and when he is he looks like he’s just waiting for his next injury.
There’s a rumour going around that Dyche had dropped Calvert-Lewin after a training ground row that resulted from the striker complaining about a headache after spending an hour heading balls away from the near post during set-piece defending drills. The rumour is that Calvert-Lewin eventually started clearing it with his shoulder and chest and Dyche sent him back in and told him he was dropped. It’s probably bollocks but who knows.
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