Sean Dyche uses Jarrad Branthwaite as example for flourishing Everton star

Sean Dyche has spoken on his mentoring of Tim Iroegbunam at the start of his Everton career and compared it to the rise of Jarrad Branthwaite last season.

The 19-year-old midfielder is the new kid on the block this season and is impressing as one of the club’s best performers so far. Last season it was Branthwaite who burst onto the scene to establish himself as one of the best young defenders in the league and Europe and a careful handling by Dyche no doubt has helped the youngsters to flourish.

“I wouldn’t say I’m surprised but it’s been going better than I expected.” He told the Liverpool ECHO. “I knew in terms of self-belief how good I am and what I can bring to the team. The manager didn’t give me any specific instructions in terms of my role. It was more a message to work hard.”

Branthwaite broke into the first-team last season after an impressive spell at PSV Eindhoven and many were itching to see how he would fare. Fast forward to May and he was being heralded as a future England starter at centre-back and Dyche can take plenty of credit for helping him develop - but his emergence wasn’t down to strict tactical coaching as confirmed by the Everton manager and he’s looking to apply the same principles with Iroegbunam. “I left Jarrad alone for most of last year” Dyche said yesterday in his press conference.

“For someone like Tim in their infancy of being at the club, you just have to let them go. I spoke about this a lot last year with Jarrad, you can sometimes coach it out of them. He was going along well so I thought just leave him; this is something I’ve learned over the years, when I was younger I thought I should be straight in telling them what to do. Sometimes, you can just them develop. Now we’re beginning to learn more about him and it’s a gradual process.”

With the signing of Orel Mangala, there’s another option for Dyche in midfield to rotate Iroegbunam and there’s also James Garner, Abdoulaye Doucoure and Idrissa Gueye. Over the course of the season, he will get plenty of minutes to develop and that is what any young player needs; Branthwaite started 35 games in the league last season and it helped him grow exponentially. However, he was older and more advanced than Iroegbunam currently is but the same principles do apply.

Amadou Onana was sold in the summer and Iroegbunam has helped alleviate some of that missed presence in midfield - but Onana by far the more established player at this stage. He’s started brilliantly for Villa and the pair will come up against each other this weekend. “They’re different players.” Dyche said.

“Amadou is slightly deeper and I hope he learnt from here because he’s young and he’s a very good player and we sold him for good money and that was a business transaction as much as anything. And Tim is one who has gone under the radar, he’s still learning and has the nuts and bolts to improve upon which we’ve spoken about but generally, he’s done well.”