Fowler tells Everton fans to "get real" and lays out scale of task for Dyche
I know given my history that advice to Everton won’t exactly be welcome…but I think it’s time for the club I supported as a kid and their fans to get real.
There has been so much wild talk about what they want after Frank Lampard was sacked. Some ridiculous names thrown in like Mauricio Pochettino and Thomas Tuchel, but this is not the time for dreaming.
They are truly in a bad - I’d say desperate - situation at the moment. But it could get a whole lot worse.
I don’t think I’m being harsh to say that no matter who came in as manager, the reality is, the odds are they’re going down. They have 15 points from 20 games, haven’t won a Premier League game since October, and have the fewest wins of any club in the top flight.
They need a magician, not a manager, and I’m not sure even David Blaine would escape from the situation they’re in. I’ve heard many Blues supporters suggesting it may be no bad thing to be relegated, so they can have a reset and come back much stronger. Are they having a laugh.
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The grim reality of life in the Premier League, is that if you drop out of it, then it’s incredibly tough to come back. And if you are in a deep financial mess, then it’s almost bloody impossible.
Again, it’s not being harsh to point out that they have a commitment to a brand new stadium that hasn’t been paid for yet…and are still searching for funding to finish it. What are the chances of attracting that financing if they’re in the Championship?
This is not Championship manager. I’m sure some people sit at home and think it can’t be that difficult because they’ve done ok on their laptop. I laughed out loud when I saw Farhad Moshiri wanted Marcelo Bielsa as his manager. Yeah, he’s a coach with a great reputation who has a very singular view of the job, and his way of doing it.
Marcelo Bielsa was in the frame for the Everton job (PA)I could have told them from the start that he wasn’t a manager to come in during January and somehow scrap his way to survival. It turns out he told them exactly that when he finally met Moshiri himself.
Again, it’s hilarious. Apparently he said he’d work with the U21s until the summer, while someone else did the heavy lifting of actually saving Everton from oblivion. Then he’d come in when his methods had a bit more of a chance of succeeding.
Being serious for a second, that tells you he has no feelings for the club, or its future, just for his coaching methods. Which is why I think Sean Dyche was always the most sensible, logical choice. If I’m being honest - and in no way critical of him, just telling it straight - if they had carte blanche at the start of the season then they wouldn’t choose him.
But right now, with financial constraints because of Profit and Sustainability rules, and with at least 20 points required to stay up when they’ve got 15 all season? He’s the best choice. The thing about Dyche is, he knows how to be hard to beat. He didn’t only survive in the Premier League with one of the smallest wage bills, he even took Burnley to seventh.
You don’t do that by playing open attacking football against Manchester City or Arsenal or Liverpool. You do it by making your side tough to beat, and your home ground a bear pit that opponents fear to come into.
I think he’s got more to him than that as a coach, he seems intelligent and thoughtful and he introduced some pretty modern methods at Burnley, including impressive analytics. But he’s not adverse to doing that.
Relegation could consign Everton to years in the wilderness (PA)He will be ready to find a way to save Everton. Not just from the drop, but from the threat of a meltdown that could destroy the club. He won’t put his own principles above the needs of the club.
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It’s vital Everton stay up. They risk becoming another Leeds or Sunderland otherwise, with years in the wilderness because their finances collapse. They need this fire putting out before it becomes an inferno of Dante proportions.
I don’t see anyone available right now with better qualifications than Dyche. And for that, at least, Everton fans have to accept it’s time to get real. I hate to say it, but as a club, maybe they should drop this People’s Club stuff for a bit.
Maybe they should stop thinking they have to compete with Liverpool, and start looking at the clubs they are really competing with right now…those at the foot of the table.
Everton have to start beating those teams, put some distance between them, before they can start looking up again. It’s tough advice, but it has to be heeded, because the alternative is unthinkable.
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