If you want to know what has changed at Everton under Sean Dyche, look no further than James Tarkowski.
Never mind Everton’s two clean sheets in consecutive home games – a welcome change from the end of the Frank Lampard era when they looked so easy to beat – it is Tarkowski’s threat at the other end of the pitch which has soared so spectacularly.
From offering next to nothing from free-kicks under Lampard, Tarkowski is now one of Everton’s most potent weapons, offering real possibility from dead balls in all three of Dyche’s games. Tarkowski, the scorer of Everton’s first goal of the Dyche era in the 1-0 win against Arsenal, has had five shots in the three games, more than any other player in the squad.
It is no coincidence. The free-kick routines that led to Everton beating Arsenal and giving Leeds and Liverpool almighty scares have been rehearsed meticulously and with unerring regularity at Finch Farm since the regime change. Dyche identified the “quality delivery” of Dwight McNeil and Alex Iwobi as his most potent weapon even before he took the Goodison Park job and so it is proving.
Dyche’s secret since taking over is not rocket science but it has given their survival bid belated lift off. An Everton source cites players working harder in games and training, simplicity of strategy and a new era of honesty and transparency with the squad as key changes.
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It says much that Demarai Gray – one of the very few shining lights under Frank Lampard – has only played 29 minutes under Dyche despite providing an obvious creative threat to a team that struggles to score goals.
He has been replaced by hitherto fairly ineffective summer signing McNeil and the explanation is straightforward. Gray covers around 8.5km per game while McNeil and Iwobi are both at around the 11km mark. In the absence of enterprise, Dyche is prioritising effort and squeezing the maximum out of what he is working with.
The tactical tweaks are allied to smart man management, with Dyche said to have projected confidence in the players and set up from the moment he arrived. “Nothing fazes him,” a source said.
The new man is undoubtedly the boss but wants his players to assume more responsibility for their predicament. When he set them a questionnaire within days of taking over, it had three questions on it. The first was what had got them into the mess they were in; the last was what they could do to get out of it. “There were a lot of similar themes in the answers,” a source says.
Dyche invited Peter Reid to talk to the group before the Merseyside derby and will lean on club legends and leaders of industry and sport to proffer insight to his group.
Reid’s speech was peppered with reminders of the size and stature of the club they are representing. There’s a feeling that for some of the group, Everton’s diminished current status clouds how historically successful and “big” the club really is.
These are early days, of course. As enticing as survival and a summer of renewal under Dyche sound, there are plenty of hard yards to cover as the relegation battle becomes concertinaed. No team looks dead and buried.
Off-the-field, the club is in a state of flux – on the verge of substantial investment from New York-based investment firm MSP Sports Capital while protests continue to buffet match days.
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MSP founder Jahm Najafi was linked with a £3.5bn buyout of Spurs last week but i understands the firm’s sights are set on Everton and talks have continued with Moshiri.
Sources said investment could be secured in the “near future” with negotiations understood to be at an advanced stage. The Everton owner wants to bring expertise and advice to the club as well as investment and seats on the board are being talked about for Najafi, Jeff Moorad and Pete Taylor from the firm.
Those talks continue while the seats of existing board members remain empty at home matches and protest group NSNOW plans protest marches before every Goodison Park fixture.
Chairman Bill Kenwright, CEO Denise Barrett-Baxendale, finance director Grant Ingles and Graeme Sharp have been absent since January after the club said there was a “real and credible threat to their safety” before the Southampton game.
However i understands that chairman Kenwright intended to attend the Leeds game at Goodison Park to show “leadership”, despite calls from some protestors for him to continue to stay away.
However late on Friday night he was instructed by the club’s security advisors not to attend the game, prolonging his absence from Goodison Park for at least another week.
That serves as a reminder that things remain febrile at the club, despite the upturn in form.
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