As Everton are discovering, the problem with changing your manager so frequently is that you end up with a squad that more resembles a mishmash of varying principles than a coherent, well-balanced Premier League roster.
Currently at Goodison Park, there are those brought in by Frank Lampard and Kevin Thelwell last summer – James Tarkowski, Amadou Onana, Conor Coady and co – sharing a dressing room with remnants from the Ronald Koeman, Marco Silva, Carlo Ancelotti and even Roberto Martinez eras.
Sean Dyche, appointed as Lampard’s replacement in January, is the eighth different head coach Mason Holgate has played under since arriving at Everton back in 2015, for instance.
The good news, at least, is that this Frankenstein’s monster of a squad actually looks pretty well-suited to ‘Dyche-ball’; a feeling backed up by that beastly, belligerent display during Saturday’s 1-0 coupon-busting win over league leaders Arsenal.
Tarkowski, Dwight McNeil and Michael Keane all played under Dyche at Burnley. Onana, Abdoulaye Doucoure and Idrissa Gana Gueye possess the steel and strength the 51-year-old looks for in the centre of the park. And, up top, Everton have a classic, throwback ‘number nine’ in Dominic Calvert-Lewin who shares so much in common with the ‘number nines’ who have thrived alongside Dyche in the past.
What could have been?
It is well-documented that Chris Wood hit double figures for four straight Premier League seasons at Burnley. But did you know that Ashley Barnes and Sam Vokes also broke the ten-goal barrier while plying their trade alongside the gravel-voiced gaffer at Turf Moor? In short, Calvert-Lewin will find chances and goals easier to come by in a more direct approcah designed to maximiset his strengths and minimise his weaknesses.
It’s ironic, then – and a stark reminder of the lack of short or long-term planning that seems to pervade throughout Goodison Park – that Dyche’s appointment came just weeks after Everton released a player who might just have taken to life alongside the Kettering-born coach like the proverbial duck to water.
At 33, Father Time has taken his toll on Salomon Rondon. The veteran Venezuelan scored just once in 28 Premier League games after returning to England from a spell in China. The fact is, however, that Dyche is far more likely to have gotten a tune out of the former Newcastle targetman than predecessor Lampard ever was.
Rondon and Dyche? A match made in footballing heaven?
Nearly a third of Rondon’s 36 English top-flight goals came from his head (13). At West Brom, he became only the second ever in the competition to score a hat-trick of headers after Toffees legend Duncan Ferguson. Clearly, Rondon is the sort of striker who relies on service from dead balls and out wide. Given that crosses are likely to be Everton’s main source of creativity under Dyche – it is no coincidence that McNeil produced his finest Toffees performance, and an assist to boot, against Arsenal – it’s tempting to wonder just how effective a squad member Rondon could have been.
Now, if Calvert-Lewin was to endure a repeat of those injury issues, the Burnley legend would have to call upon Neal Maupay instead. A diminutive, 5ft 8ins poacher who is about as typical a Dyche striker as Daniel Day Lewis is a Razzie nominee.
Dyche is one of the few, if not the only Premier League coach capable of coaxing something special out of a 33-year-old Salomon Rondon. But, as the 51-year-old may be about to discover, foresight is not exactly Everton’s forte.
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