Everton director comments on Sean Dyche decision amid poor start to the season

Everton’s director of football Kevin Thelwell has opened up on the public backing of Sean Dyche from the club amid their poor start to the season.

The Toffees have lost all four of their opening four league games and were also dumped out of the EFL Cup on penalties on Tuesday night. Pressure has risen game by game and the frustration of mistakes, injuries and the failure to hold onto two separate leads has all contributed to the negative atmosphere surrounding the manager.

Despite that, Dyche has been resilient and was backed by the club in a statement earlier this week. And now Thelwell, speaking to BBC Radio Merseyside in a rare interview, reiterated his backing for the manager. He said: “I’m glad that the club did make that statement and I’m glad that we’ve tried to make it clear because he’s obviously working under very difficult circumstances. We’ve still got an ownership issue to resolve, we’ve still got financial situations to resolve and so that makes it very difficult for a manager when we want to try and take that next step.

“Sean and I work very closely together, our offices are across the road from each other and are literally a meter apart so we’re talking regularly in the mornings, regularly in the afternoons and regularly in the evenings, talking consistently about what things we can do and how we can use the resources that we have got available to try and making things better going forward.”

A trip to face fellow strugglers Leicester City poses a chance for them to get their first win on the board. Steve Cooper’s side are one of the favourites for the drop and have mustered just two points so far. Everton showed quality to initially go two goals up against both Bournemouth and Aston Villa and they will have confidence in their ability to do so again at the King Power stadium.

The issue is whether they can hold off a spirited Leicester attack that, despite their lack of a clinical strike force, do have pace in the wide areas and plenty of experience in the form of Jamie Vardy, who netted against Crystal Palace last weekend.