Sean Dyche says he wants to lead Everton into the new stadium next year but he accepts there are no guarantees of anything other than his determination to keep trying to improve the Club’s fortunes on the field.
The 53-year-old is out of contract at the end of this season and with Everton’s ownership situation having been up in the air for 12 months, there have been no discussions over new terms.
Dyche’s future was already the subject of much speculation given the fact that the Blues have made another terrible start to a season under his stewardship but the news this week that The Friedkin Group (TFG) have agreed a deal to buy Farhad Moshiri out of his majority stake in the Club has placed further doubt over whether the manager will be retained beyond the summer.
With the process of regulatory approval by the Football Association, Financial Conduct Authority and Premier League only just underway, with a timeline of anywhere between four to 12 weeks having been mooted, the Friedkins have not made known their plans for Everton or spoken with Dyche but there is every chance they may want to bring in their own hand-picked personnel.
Dyche is hoping to use the next few weeks to prove that he is the man to take the Toffees forward and earn a new deal in time for the inaugural season at Bramley-Moore Dock.
“I haven’t spoken to them [and] I don’t know when I’m likely to,” the manager said of TFG. “It’s not a given that they’ll speak with me but you would imagine they will at some point.
“[Clarity over my own future] is not really relevant. I’ve tried to speak openly about it — I got brought here as a custodian … to do a specific job, I feel, especially looking backwards from where it was to where it is now, and I continue to work hard at that.
“And that will be my focus; everything else will sort itself out. Obviously, we’ve got to change results — that’s a given, but the actual workload of what I’ve done here has been considerable and I’ll just keep doing that.
“However it opens up in the future, we’ll see.”
He was asked later whether he wanted to be in the job when Everton move into their new stadium next year and while he said he would, he was pragmatic about the unknowns of what the new owners might want.
“Of course I do. What, dig this out for 21 months, or whatever it will be by then, for them to go: ‘Thanks for looking after us, off you pop’? Of course I would, but there is no divine right that they will say: ‘You are definitely the person to do this.’ And, if not, that is the way it goes.
“I don’t guarantee anything. What I do guarantee is hard work. I can’t guarantee that I am here, I can’t guarantee they finish off the ownership deal, I can’t guarantee they put £100m in or £10m. I can’t guarantee any of that. All I can guarantee is my own hard work, helping others the best I can and trying to balance out the situation.
“Until they give a feel or a steer on it, everything is conjecture.”