A few hours before Everton hosted League One Peterborough they announced that Sean Dyche had been let go from the club. He is the sixth manager to be sacked this season, and the second this week.
A statement on the club website reads:
Everton Football Club can confirm that Sean Dyche has been relieved of his duties as Senior Men’s First Team Manager with immediate effect.
Ian Woan, Steve Stone, Mark Howard and Billy Mercer have also left the Club.
The process to appoint a new manager is under way and an update will be provided in due course.
Under-18s Head Coach Leighton Baines and Club Captain Seamus Coleman will take charge of first-team affairs on an interim basis.
Dyche replaced Frank Lampard in January 2023 and has been releived of his post just under two years later. His record across eighty-four games with club is twenty-six wins, twenty-six draws, and thirty-two losses. At the end of the 23/24 season Everton finished in 15th place, they currently sit sixteenth.
With the new stadium at Bramley-Moore Dock due to become the club home from the 25/26 season, Everton are anxious to retain their postion as one of the six teams to have maintained EPL status since it's inception, and to retain the top flight status that they have held continuously since the 1954/55 season.
With results being lacklustre and the club take over by the Friedkin group being completed last month there was a feeling that Sean's time may be drawing to a close. The terse club statement does little to suggest that a replacement is in the wings, but the club will be anxious to move swiftly so that the incoming replacement has time to make any transfer moves desired.
The manner of the sacking will leave an unpleasant taste in the mouths of many associated with the club. Sean was at the training ground earlier on Thursday, as the team prepared for their third round FA cup match, for him and his close backroom team to be released so soon before a match suggests that board deliberations felt a swift resolution outweighed any other reasonings and, indeed, may point to the way discussions between the incoming board and the manager had proceeded.
Everton are a club with a rich history and a new stadium to be excited about. But they are a team in the doldrums on the pitch and are bouncing around the wrong part of the table.
There are plenty of people currently out of work who may be interested in the job, some of them with recent EPL experience - Erik ten Hag and Steve Cooper come to mind. Whether the Friedkin Group will look to bring in someone readily available, or seek to attract a manager from another club - EPL or abroad - remains to be seen, but they will certainly hope to have them in place before EPL duties resume with a home match against Villa next Wednesday.
As a side note, with Villa playing West Ham in the cup on Friday, they are playing back-to-back matches against teams who have just sacked a manager.
text by stuartcturnbull, picture from Getty Images via BBC