Sean Dyche would be mad to leave Burnley for Everton

Sean Dyche and perfection go hand-in-hand. He possesses the perfect down-to-earth persona that very few people in such high-pressure jobs maintain. He’s absolutely perfect to sit down and skull a few pints with.

Dyche also maintains just enough ginger facial hair for him to be trendy, without people feeling sorry for him.

But are Everton perfect for him? Absolutely not.

Here’s why.

There’s absolutely no loyalty in football. There shouldn’t be, either – but that’s another topic for another day. Managers are given absolutely no time, but the one saving grace they can acquire is developing a cult of personality around a football club. Dyche is the ultimate example, and honestly – if he actually established Dycheism, you’d join straight up.

Apart from a group of future World Cup winners in Brady, Hendrick, Walters, Long and Ward, the 46-year-old doesn’t exactly have a squad of superstars.

His biggest strength is that he knows this. When managing in a league with delusions of grandeur, you’d do very well to find a board who don’t think too much of themselves. Burnley are the exemplar of a football club that knows where they’re at – and they’re fine with it.

Dyche is key to this mentality and Turf Moor bears witness to a refreshing throwback on a fortnightly basis. A throwback to old school mentality. To old school home advantage. To old school hostility. However, none of this happens without a manager who possesses the interpersonal skills to implement this psyche in a squad of players whose profession means they’d prefer to give into the masses and ‘express’ themselves. It’s a job – not a platform for brand exposure.

Forty-six miles away, lies Goodison Park. Home to the biggest source of delusion in top tier English football. Strong historical tradition does not give you just cause to claim ‘big club’ status, nor does it mean you should action the sacking of managers who will take time to develop philosophies established on bigger stages.

What Everton want is success, but they’re evidently impatient to achieve that.

So, how do we fast track that? By bringing in a manager whose approach to the game is so different to his predecessor that it could take a couple of transfer windows to build the right type of squad to buy into his ways? Honestly, this move would be great for the Toffees in time – but time is not what you get when you’re in charge of a club who feel they’ve a divine right to challenge the upper echelons of the Premier League.

The Kettering native would become nothing more than a pub quiz question in sixty years if he were to take up this role.

Instead, he can stroll around a close-knit community in Lancashire that worship him, and finish building what he’s established at a club who accept him for what he is.

Imagine the possible outcomes:

• Dyche tries to sign key members of his Burnley players for inflated figures. Fans and the board complain that they’re not the most marketable. They struggle at the start because every squad of players in a new environment/regime does. That’s the forgotten law of the game.
• He could go and sign bigger names from the continent, but they’ll not sit in a 4-5-1 for him at home to Chelsea. They’ll cause hassle, and overhauling a manager is cheaper than getting a new squad of players.
• Perhaps he keeps the current squad? Except you simply cannot do that unless you’re Arsene Wenger. Boards demand new players because they believe that real life duty is just an awkward game of Football Manager.

There’s nothing for Dyche to gain at Everton, except the weight of unrealistic expectation on his shoulders.