Of all the things you’d expect to hear about the mood at Everton’s Finch Farm training ground right now, a sense of calm is not one.
Having sunk into the Premier League’s bottom three again last weekend after frittering a lead at Nottingham Forest, the fixture list makes for ominous reading. Three of the top seven hover in their next five games and the other two are against Chelsea and in-form Brentford, who visit Goodison Park on Saturday. They represent a major test for a team without a win in three.
But among the group inherited by Sean Dyche, there is conviction that the situation can be turned around and that belief comes from the top.
“The manager just projects calm. When he says the team will stay up, you believe it,” a source says.
“There’s a real sense that he’s been here before and got out of it – maybe unlike Frank Lampard last year who hadn’t been in the position before and where it was quite emotionally driven.”
Say that to Dyche and you’d probably get a throaty chuckle for your troubles. While he’s big on creating the right foundations for success, he’s told all of the players that only total application in the Premier League run-in will avoid a ruinous relegation. So far, none have objected to his demand for hard work and the team are covering considerably more ground per game than they did under his predecessor.
The Toffees feel they are getting there. There is probably only the Merseyside derby of Dyche’s six games in charge where Everton have dipped to the desperate levels that saw Lampard dismissed. Even in defeats to Arsenal and Aston Villa they showed something and in the draw at Nottingham Forest they were the better side.
“There are strong signs but signs don’t give you anything,” Dyche said at Thursday’s pre-match press conference.
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“You don’t just win because there are strong signs – you win because you get everything right throughout a 90-odd minute match.
“Like I’ve said before, all of us would take a lucky [result] now and again – anyone would – but you can’t really build on lucky ones.
“You have to build on something that is real and I see something real that is happening. I see the team working effectively and efficiently. I see the shape getting better, working on transition better and we’re beginning to find better ways of operating in the attacking third – more entries into the box, more quality entrances into the box.”
Home form is going to be crucial to Everton’s hopes and a fragile truce between supporters and club has been brokered on the back of Dyche’s immediate impact.
The atmosphere during 90 minutes has been supportive and partisan since he took charge and spoke of restoring values of hard work, effort and straining every sinew for the cause. Whatever the sniffiness around his appointment by some, those feel like core Evertonian values that had perhaps been lost in the dalliances with Carlo Ancelotti and James Rodriguez.
There is no detente in the feelings towards the club’s hierarchy from many supporters, though. To that end, Bill Kenwright and the rest of the board will be absent once again at Goodison Park on Saturday.
On Friday, an open letter from the Nsnow campaign [which takes its name from the club’s motto “Nil Satis Nisi Optimum” or “nothing but the best is good enough”]targeted club legend Graeme Sharp, who is a non-executive director, and challenging him to “‘”fill the leadership vacuum” at the club as well as push for majority owner Farhad Moshiri to “strengthen the board”. Sharp chose not to respond.
Changes, though, are afoot. Both stadium financing and a minority investment through MSP Sports Capital are “close”, sources have told i.
Both would be welcome, along with wins to back up the burgeoning sense that Dyche is starting to shift momentum back to Merseyside in the relegation fight.
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