Nottingham Forest manager Sean Dyche spoke to the media following his side's 3-0 defeat to Everton at Hill Dickinson Stadium
Sean Dyche has hailed Everton’s new Hill Dickinson Stadium home as “magnificent” as he insists there are no hard feelings that he wasn’t the man to lead the Blues to the Mersey waterfront, even though the actions of home captain James Tarkowski left him unimpressed.
Dyche was appointed Everton manager when the team were second bottom of the Premier League in January 2023 and he steered them to safety as they avoided a first relegation in 72 years by a single Abdoulaye Doucoure goal on the final day despite posting the lowest equivalent points total in the club’s history. In the following season, the Blues overcame an unprecedented brace of points deductions for PSR rule breaches, and despite not winning between Christmas and Easter would have finished level on points with 11th place Brighton & Hove Albion had it not been for their off-the-field punishments.
However, Dyche only won two home games in Goodison Park’s historic final season and was sacked by new owners The Friedkin Group following the 1-0 defeat at Bournemouth on January 4 this year, a result that left the team with 17 points at the halfway stage of the Premier League campaign, a tally that was less than 50% of their 2022/23 total. Asked about his return following Everton’s 3-0 win over his Nottingham Forest side, the 54-year-old said: “There’s no satisfaction today for obvious reasons, but of course it’s fantastic to see the club come out, hopefully well out, of that dark period for many different reasons. I said about the score today, it’s not relevant to me, I’ve moved on, but somewhere in the future I think people will recognise the job I did.
“I said in the build-up to this game, we all did, there were loads of people involved in that period, including the players, and a lot of them are still here. Now they’re in this magnificent stadium, so fair play, that’s one of those things.
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“There’s no axe to grind from me. I did my job, worked really hard, so did a lot of people.
“I saw Keano. I’ll pop in and see Moyesy, I’ll see the staff as well.
“You know what it’s like though, everyone’s prepping for a game, I’m not bowling around, trying to say hello to everyone. But Keano and Tarky, I had them at Burnley as well – they’re great fellas.”
Dyche had complaints over a couple of moments in the first half though which he brought up. He said: “I said to big Tarky just to be clear, and I respect him and like him as a bloke, I said to him, how he got away with that (an off the ball bump in the back on Dan Ndoye) in the first half, I don’t know what’s going on there. The referee is honest, I went to see him, and he said he didn’t see it and none of the officials saw it, but I said: ‘VAR saw it and they did nothing about it.’
“I’m very, very surprised at that and I’ve told him (Tarkowski) that I’m going to tell you this by the way. Equally, and really crying it in, for the second goal, it hits the referee on the way through, diverts it right into his path.
“They’re on a breakaway, three v one or two, but those things, on a day that you’re not playing well, you don’t need those to go against you, that’s for sure. As I suggest, I’m going to credit Everton because they looked more up for it – and I’m not talking about the quality of either side’s football, I’m talking about the edge and desire to really take the game on and we were lacking on that today – so it’s a real reminder to our group that has to be in place as a basic and then your good play can take care of itself.”
In terms of the overall result though, Dyche conceded that his Forest side were very much second best to Everton. He said: “Obviously, we never got off to a good start, and that’s not helpful. To be honest, I never thought we got close to the performance level I expect from the group – not on tactics or anything, just the competitive nature, the desire, the will, the collective to take the game on.
“I never thought we got to grips with it. They did – credit to them.
“They started bright, they started with an edge. They were fighting, they were competing, getting the ball forward, asking questions, running hard, all the basics.
“I don’t want to over-egg it because I think the players here have done a big shift from that, from when we got here to where they are now. It’s only the second time that we’ve stepped away from it because I think they’ve put in a real shift physically and the mentality to go and take games on.
“But we can’t start like that in games against a team who looked real hungry with a chance to jump up the league. We’ve done that well so far, but we didn’t today.
“I think it’s a challenge at the minute because I’m learning about the players. The way that we train, the way that we’re working with them, the rest and recovery.
“I made the decision to keep the same side because I thought it was a nice balance to it with the previous couple of performances and a few just looked like they were flagging early doors. So, we had to make changes, it was nothing against them or anything like that, we were just trying to freshen it and give the game a different feel.”