Dyche sacked by Everton as TFG make big decision

Sean Dyche sacked by Everton as The Friedkin Group make big decision hours before FA Cup match

Sean Dyche has been sacked as Everton manager by new owners The Friedkin Group

Bookmark

Everton have sacked Sean Dyche. The manager leaves Goodison Park with the club in 16th place, one point above the relegation zone after just three wins in the first 19 games of the season. It came just hours ahead of the club's FA Cup tie with Peterborough United and followed a week of speculation over his future. Under-18S manager Leighton Baines and club captain Seamus Coleman will take control of the team for that game.

The call is the first major decision of the club’s new owners, The Friedkin Group [TFG], and comes just weeks after the US outfit completed its takeover of the Blues.

That deal, combined with the move to the new waterfront stadium planned for the summer, should herald a new dawn of stability and progress for a club that has been mired in crisis across recent years.

But the present remains troubling, with Everton having failed to score in eight of the past 10 games and several rivals in the battle for survival having picked up form. One of those, Ipswich Town, would have overtaken the Blues had they not conceded a stoppage time equaliser at Fulham on Sunday. A win would have opened up the potential for Everton to drop into the bottom three with victory for Wolverhampton Wanderers had they beaten Nottingham Forest on Monday night.

Despite Fulham’s late goal, the table still made for grim reading as TFG decided to end Dyche’s reign a few weeks shy of his two year anniversary.

Results in December had not been disastrous, with an important demolition of Wolves being followed by useful draws against Arsenal, Chelsea and Manchester City.

The goalless draw with Chelsea was the first of TFG’s ownership and was watched by newly-installed Everton executive chairman Marc Watts. His regime was firm in its initial support of Dyche and the status quo while they began work on overhauling the club behind the scenes.

The stale performances that followed the Boxing Day draw at Manchester City sucked the spirit out of the club, however, with Everton unable to build on those displays of resilience. Everton ended 2024 with a home defeat to Nottingham Forest in which it took 81 minutes to register a shot on target. The club began 2025 without a shot on target in a chastening defeat at Bournemouth.

That result left supporter sentiment at a low and that, as well as his post-match comments, added fuel to calls for him to go. Asked by the ECHO what reassurances he could give to the new owners and supporters about the trajectory of the team, he replied: “No reassurances of any kind because the reality of football management is every time that whistle blows, no manager can reassure anything, no manager can assure every result goes your way.”

Dyche had cut an increasingly frustrated figure in recent weeks, continuing to point to the issues he inherited in response to questions over the struggles of the present.

He will no longer be part of the club’s future after TFG decided to sack him on Monday, ending a 23 month stint in which he twice led Everton to safety against a backdrop of chaos while former owner Farhad Moshiri sought an escape from the club. Having twice succeeded in the battle against the drop, he departs following the loss of belief in his ability to lead Everton to safety once again.

Story Saved
You can find this story in  My Bookmarks.Or by navigating to the user icon in the top right.