Sean Dyche is on the verge of taking charge of Everton’s battle to stay in the Premier League.
Former Burnley boss Dyche is set to be confirmed as Everton boss in the next 24 hours after talks with ex-Leeds manager Marcelo Bielsa failed to produce a successful conclusion.
Dyche will take over a side that has suffered nine Premier League defeats in 12 matches, a desperate run that cost Frank Lampard his job on Monday and has left the Toffees one place off the foot of the table.
The 51-year-old spent 10 years at Burnley, winning two promotions from the Championship and even securing a seventh-place top-flight finish to take the club into Europe.
But he was sacked last April with the Clarets embroiled in a relegation battle which they failed to escape from.
Dyche is understood to have sanctioned the departure of wantaway winger Anthony Gordon, with a £40million deal, plus £5m of add-ons, thrashed out with Newcastle. Gordon was absent from training for three days before returning on Friday.
Dyche has been linked with the Everton job previously, most recently after Carlo Ancelotti’s departure in the summer of 2021, and in November spoke about those links.
#EFC can confirm that Frank Lampard has left his post as Senior Men’s First Team Manager today.
Paul Tait and Leighton Baines will take training until a new manager is appointed.— Everton (@Everton) January 23, 2023
“Proper club, we all know that and it’s got a proper feel about it,” he said in an interview with talkSPORT.
“The People’s Club, it always feels to me. I think I have a feel for that because of my history in the Premier League.”
Reports on Friday claimed Bielsa, who flew into London for talks on Thursday, wanted to bring eight members of his backroom team and not take over the team immediately but work with the under-21s and academy before assuming control in the summer.
That scenario, the financial package associated with it and his earlier suggestions he did not believe Everton’s current squad was suited to his methods, persuaded the club to move on.
Dyche will have little time to bring fresh faces in to the Everton squad with the transfer window closing in a few days’ time.
But one of the advantages he has is that there are three of his former Burnley players – James Tarkowski, Michael Keane and Dwight McNeil – in the Everton squad.
Asked in November what a good job looked like, he added: “You just feel like a club has a solid base to it, a solid core. I call it a heartbeat to the club.
“Some clubs you have to instil it. It becomes part of your job as manager, to give that feel to a team because maybe it has got lost or its got stretched.
“You’d arguably need some kind of finance – no one has magic dust, I certainly haven’t – to allow you the chance to operate, but the biggest thing is look at what you have got first and mould that into a team that can compete.”
