Having watched this play out so many times, I know the script by heart:
Scene 1: The new manager breezes in and says nice things about the fans, mentions the “sleeping giant” thing, smiles confidently oozing bonhomie to the press and we’re up and running.
Scene 2: He rides the “new guy” bounce with a mix of results but, shielded by the “no striker, financial penury etc” excuses, maintains a bullish countenance only looking at his feet occasionally to hint at creeping anxiety.
Scene 3: We buy poorly (or not at all) and the chickens come home to roost. Crap results and even crapper performances see excuses as mere words and the manager is a dead man walking.
Scene 4: He’s gone.
It happens everywhere: Pochettino and Ten Haag are at Scene 3; the rest in various stages of getting there. Only Pep and Klopp are more than a season away from the boot.
Why? Because football coaches are mostly the same shade of beige. Caution over adventure, old heads before youth, “same old, same old” before defiance of the odds.
Moyes, Koeman, Silva, Allardyce, Benitez, Ancelotti, Lampard and now Dyche all roughly of the same predictable cloth (Carlo’s being woven with gold of course but nonetheless the same style).
The next guy needs to be different, a maverick in the Bielsa or Martinez mould… but he must be given reasonable money or else further descent is inevitable.
I don’t know who he is because I am utterly clueless about football beyond Goodison Park. I depend on the more enlightened to suggest where we can find the elusive maverick… hoping decision-makers at the club read and take note.
I prayed Dyche was abrasive enough to be different and shake the place up but it just hasn’t happened and time is running out. Anyone else notice we’re getting turned over at home by no-marks and think it’s slightly off-putting?