Everton boss Sean Dyche on their recent difficult run of results, injuries and the impact of Ruben Amorim ahead of Premier League clash with Manchester United
Finch Farm, Liverpool, UK
Finch Farm, Liverpool, UK
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00:00Good afternoon everyone, welcome to our pre-match press conference to preview our game against Manchester United. We'll start off with Alan from Sky.
00:07Afternoon Sean, good to see you. I think we've been talking about this for a long time, this busy period of games in December, seven matches to play.
00:16I just wonder whether this is a benefit for you really, because no international breaks, no cup competitions, time for you to work and focus and train more with the team, is that good?
00:26I think certainly with the international break, people often say about us working with the team, but a lot of them are not here.
00:32We do get that period, but obviously with the amount of games on the other hand, you only get so many days to work in between the games.
00:37Some of that period has to be rest phases, especially when we've got people coming back from injury and the like.
00:42We've been stretched this year, so this period will probably stretch us in terms of the player usage and the energy of the players, but that's the same for everyone.
00:50Talking of players coming back from injury, how are you now in terms of a fully-fitted squad? Are you nearly there?
00:55Well, we're getting there. AB will get some minutes again today, as will Youssef on his journey back to full fitness.
01:02There's a game here today, sorry, so they'll get some time in that, which is good.
01:07AB's in front of Youssef. Youssef is only just his start point really, but AB's looking really fit, so that's good.
01:13Seamus, at least, is getting back on the grass with us, so probably won't be enough for this weekend, but he's showing signs of getting truly fit, if you like, after an up-and-down time with niggly injuries.
01:25So, yeah, and other players who are just getting back to full fitness, if you like, full Premier League fitness, it's coming.
01:30So, we don't want to say too much, because every time I do, we lose players again, but hopefully they'll stay fit and keep getting fitter.
01:37So, when you say Armando Brogia, is he anywhere near the squad for the weekend?
01:41Yeah, well, we'll see how he goes today. We're certainly going to monitor his minutes today, but he's done a real lot of background work and feeling good.
01:49I've spoken to him about possibly being involved, so we'll see.
01:52James Garner, Tim Irwin?
01:54Yeah, they're a little bit behind. Jimmy, particularly, he's not there yet, as in on the grass.
01:58Tim's just about in the early phases of coming back, but it's going to be a while. It's a strange sort of injury, so we've got to be a bit careful with that.
02:06I know we've got this positive and negative sort of aspect at the moment, with one defeat in eight matches, but only five of those being drawn, etc.
02:15The truth of the matter is, you've got to score goals to win matches. Are you working even harder on that at the moment?
02:22You work with them constantly about goal threats, not just strikers. How can you operate to be a threat?
02:29A lot was made of our set-pieces, and that's still absolutely valid. We want to be a threat from that, from open play.
02:37How many different ways can you affect the opposition? We found it tough against a compact defence against Brentford.
02:42When they went down to ten, we couldn't find those key moments. In other games, we have, and we haven't finished it.
02:47The XG and all the rest of it, but at the end of the day, it's the scoreline you're looking for to get that right.
02:52We've obviously made a considerable difference to the defending stats from the early part of the season, from the first four games.
02:59In the last eight, we've only conceded four, I think it is, so there's obvious signs there.
03:04And then finding that balance, me and most other managers talk about endlessly, the balance between defending well as a team and attacking well as a team.
03:11The final moment of the truce is obviously the hardest as a manager. You can't kick it in for them.
03:17It must play on players' confidence though, isn't it? You've talked in the past about strikers thriving on scoring goals,
03:23and Dominic Calvert-Lewin has gone eight games without a goal. Do you see an effect on him out on the training pitch at all?
03:29I think strikers want to score goals. They're hungry, they should be anyway, hungry to score goals.
03:34But also how they can affect the team in other ways. Dom's been working hard, Beto's been working hard to adapt and get stronger,
03:41and his knowledge of what it is over here. AB's yet to be seen, and Youssef's been very unlucky this season with his injury.
03:49A mixture of good strikers, I feel, but we've got to get them operating, and that's mine, the staff and the players' responsibility
03:56to get to a point where we are scoring more goals.
04:00That's the solid base of any Premier League team, isn't it?
04:03Well, it was a big challenge. We had to change that. We started the season with too many giveaway goals, too many soft goals.
04:09We have changed that, that's quite obvious, and now, like I say, it's finding the balance between the work ethic of the group,
04:15not just the defensive unit, the work ethic of the whole team to make sure we're looking after ourselves as regards clean sheets,
04:20or low goal tally, to give us the best chance of operating in the attacking third and going and scoring and winning games.
04:27So, what of Manchester United on Sunday, Sean?
04:30Has your task been made a little more difficult because it's the new manager's first home Premier League game in charge?
04:37Well, I think everyone talks about a new manager bounce and all the rest of it, so it's more difficult in that kind of way of thinking,
04:42but they're still good players. They've got good players.
04:46A new manager for the Premier League, maybe give a different feel to it.
04:49I'm sure he's been working with the players and trying to get his thoughts across in the limited sort of time period they've had,
04:55and he obviously played last night as well.
04:57Did you watch their game last night?
04:58I did.
04:59Have you met the manager before? Do you know him at all?
05:02No, I don't know much of his work, other than stuff from the TV and stats and facts, but I don't know much of his work.
05:09Well, wish you luck.
05:14Hey Sean, Betty here from PLP.
05:16Talking about Ruben Amerim, of course he's made it very clear that he wants to play in that 3-4-3 formation,
05:22and while Manchester United are sort of getting used to that, do you think you can use that to your advantage at all?
05:28Oh, we'll see. I mean, there were clear signs of how he wanted to adapt it, with different passing thoughts and the way the team were trying to operate.
05:37That's his challenge, to get that to happen quickly, and it's our challenge to make sure it doesn't, of course,
05:41and to go and deliver our performance, because it's important to remember what we do,
05:45and certainly to be ready for anything.
05:47He might change back, I don't know, but it does suggest he likes playing three at the back at least,
05:52and there may be a variance in front of the three.
05:55You've talked a little bit about how defensively you've been really solid, really sound.
06:00Do you think that you're sort of one adjustment away from things really starting to click?
06:06Well, we're not being far away. I mean, we've created enough chance in games, the ones that we've drawn to win,
06:12and we haven't taken the chances, so we're never that far away.
06:15You know, the defensive side had to be looked at, and I've been pleased with that side of it,
06:19and now we've shored that up and corrected it, but now finding the fluid play, if you like,
06:25or sometimes, as I suggested, it might be a set piece. It doesn't always have to be fluid.
06:29There's different ways of scoring goals, but you want more goals from open play,
06:33and I think this club's been challenging itself for five seasons now, where the goal tally's not been that high,
06:38so we're trying to correct a lot of that as well. It's not just the individuals now.
06:41It's kind of that theme where the team hasn't always scored lots of goals on a regular basis.
06:45How do you change that without the goals coming in?
06:48Consistent work, consistent values in how we work.
06:52I'm not overthinking it with the strikers particularly.
06:55They call it zone thinking, where you play freely. You go into the box, you're not overthinking things.
07:01You naturally arrive in places. Coaching with strikers is a very tricky thing.
07:06Most strikers and top strikers – I was talking to one yesterday with the Forest lads, Ian Storymore,
07:12and he was saying there's a knack as a striker, there's a way of landing in the right place at the right time,
07:16and some of the best are like that.
07:18So mixing up with training ideas, with movement patterns, but also the striker going into the box free,
07:23if you like, to sniff a goal.
07:25And sometimes make a goal. Make a goal themselves. It's not always the team.
07:29Some of the best strikers, they find a goal by making it themselves, so there's that mixture.
07:33Not just strikers either, by the way.
07:35Talking about December and this tough run of fixtures, how do you prepare for fixtures like this?
07:40Because it doesn't really get much harder for you, does it?
07:43I say all the time, I've been doing it a long time in the Premier League, and you've got to play them all.
07:48Everyone's aware of it, and every time, every one of these press conferences,
07:51there'll be another manager out there at some point where they're saying,
07:53oh, you've got this tough run coming, sorry.
07:56It'll be Dean Pepp at the minute, the legendary status that he has.
08:00Even he's getting questions, what's the next game look like?
08:03So, you know, that's the way it is, and the fixtures have given us this run,
08:07and yes, it's a tough run, but everything's tough in the Premier League.
08:10We've shown before that we can take these teams on, and that's what we've got to do again.
08:14Perfect, thank you.
08:15Thanks, Cletty. We'll go to Julia.
08:19I'm going to stick with strikers just for a minute.
08:22In the previous game, you brought Beto on, and before it had been sort of Dom came off,
08:28Beto came on, you played two up top.
08:30Is that something in your search for goals that now you're thinking,
08:33I'm going to play them together, and can they play together to get those goals?
08:36We're just finding different ways of operating.
08:38I mean, the strikers we have here, I don't think any of them have played regularly in a two,
08:42and it is different, you know, understanding the combination of two strikers.
08:45So that takes time to adapt to both on the training pitch and possibly in games,
08:49but sometimes, you know, the way strikers work, they can find goals out of nothing,
08:53and, you know, a tough patch of not scoring suddenly becomes a purple patch.
08:57So trying to operate in different ways, to be honest, and affect games in different ways
09:01to try and break down the opposition and score more goals.
09:04You said before that, you know, it's been maybe an issue that's gone on
09:07prior to your time here about trying to get goals.
09:10I think you've said to me before it's an anomaly when strikers don't score
09:14sort of the high-end number of goals.
09:16At which point do you think maybe I have to look at this completely different?
09:19Do you look at maybe bringing in like a, I don't know, is there a striker specialist or something?
09:24Because I just think if it's gone on that long before...
09:26Well, as I said, you know, I was with some very good players.
09:29John Robertson yesterday, legendary figure that is in Storymore.
09:33Gary Birtles, I was with them yesterday and I was chatting to them about it.
09:36You know what I'm saying?
09:37It's not, I don't remember striker coaches when they were kids.
09:40I just remember learning on the job and learning where to be in the right place at the right time.
09:45And I'd say that kind of, it's like an instinct for the top strikers.
09:49So you develop the running patterns, you develop where to go,
09:51you develop where the team can put the ball,
09:53the final moment of truth is often down to the strikers.
09:56You know, I said recently, I said it last week in fact, most clubs buy strikers.
10:02It's very rare you just develop them.
10:04Some come out of the system now and again.
10:06So we're trying to develop strikers or develop the ones we've got to be better strikers.
10:11Because I think they are good strikers.
10:12But developing that moment of truth is very difficult to just coach it.
10:16Because if everyone thought it was that easy, they'd all have striker coaches.
10:21Given that there were no goals scored in the month,
10:23and obviously the position that you're in right now,
10:26your overview of the season, are you worried right now it is a relegation battle again?
10:30No, it's nothing more than I thought it was going to be in a sense.
10:33I didn't go into this season, you know, we've been selling players every season.
10:36So you're going to bring new players in.
10:38They've got to adapt. They've got to hit the ground running.
10:40We've been trying to make them do that.
10:42There's no illusion that we'd just be romping up the table.
10:45You know, the team hasn't, the club hasn't done that for a number of seasons.
10:48There's no reason why it's just, you know, like a magic click of the fingers and it all falls together.
10:53On the other hand, when you look at the games, I mean, you know,
10:56we still had them head scratches where you're amazed we didn't certainly get a point,
11:00if not three, out of games.
11:01And if they were, I know it's easy to say now, but, you know,
11:06we had enough chance against Southampton to win that game,
11:08enough chance against Bremerton to win that game.
11:10If you win them games, it all looks different.
11:12So we've got to remember we're not miles away from where we need to be as regards to performances.
11:16But now it's about adding in the killer moments, you know,
11:19and that's the biggest step that we've got to take now.
11:22But no, in the bigger picture, I was certainly hoping for better than we're doing at the minute,
11:26league-wise, in some of the performances,
11:29and I certainly wasn't expecting to get off to the beginning of the season that we did.
11:32On the other hand, there was no illusion that it's just going to be an easy season,
11:36because it's not.
11:37You know, that was from the off, we knew that, from the last couple of seasons.
11:40You can't change things overnight, not unless you've got lots and lots and lots and lots of money.
11:44And they've even tried that here and that didn't work that well.
11:46So it's not that easy.
11:48There are some reports today around Nathan Paterson potentially going on loan in January.
11:54Who's reporting? Who?
11:55It's online saying that there are, I can get my phone out if you want,
11:59I can't remember the exact, but there are some claims.
12:01I think it's coming from north of the border saying that Rangers would be potentially a destination for him.
12:06So that's where it's come from.
12:07I just wondered if, is that an option for him to go out on loan?
12:11Because why isn't he able to, I know he's had injuries obviously, but he's back in training.
12:15Why isn't he able to get into that?
12:17Yeah, we'll decide what happens with the players here,
12:19but he's on a journey back from a really serious injury and he continues to be on that journey.
12:23But he's going along well.
12:26Thanks, Julia.
12:27Any further questions in the open section?
12:29Karl, we'll go to you.
12:37Hi, Sean.
12:38I know there's always pressure to get points from every game,
12:42but because of this month coming up,
12:44is there an extra sort of scrutiny or extra concentration on eking out as much as you possibly can from this?
12:50No, no, no.
12:51We've got to take on every game.
12:52You know, we've, you know, just because it's a piece of play, but it's a tough run, which it is,
12:56it doesn't mean that that's the outcome.
12:58So we have to make sure we're clear-minded on that and remind the players of the good work that we're doing
13:02and the stuff we want to do.
13:03And some of the big results I had in the past that makes you, you know,
13:06remind them of the fact that we're certainly capable of being competitive against anyone.
13:10Is that something you would do then?
13:12Remind them of the results they've got against some of the big teams?
13:14No, not always.
13:15I just mean, it's just part of it.
13:16You know, there's different ways of operating to make sure there is,
13:19well, hopefully to try and reinforce they're in the right mind state to go and take on these teams.
13:26Thanks, Karl.
13:29Excuse me.
13:30Hi, Sean.
13:31Hi, Sean.
13:32Just in terms of Paterson, he plays on Monday night.
13:34How did he get on?
13:35And can you explain the red cards?
13:36What happens when people...
13:37Yeah, I wasn't at the game.
13:38I only went down to the game, but I think it was a kick-in-the-ball-away incident.
13:42So therefore he got a red card for a second yellow, I think.
13:45But in terms of performance, how did he do?
13:47Yeah, fine.
13:49There's 12 games left of Goodson Park.
13:51I understand you're away from home this weekend, but you've got two home games coming up.
13:55And obviously fans want to give the stadium a good send-off.
13:58There's only been one win so far.
14:00Is it a balance of having a happy medium between giving the fans entertainment, a good set-back
14:05and trying to deliver results?
14:07No, there's no balance.
14:08The balance is clear for me.
14:11Win games.
14:12I can't get involved in the...
14:14I've said many times, the fans want the truth.
14:16I tell them the truth.
14:17Just here's the last season in a marvellous old stadium, which I've grown to love myself.
14:21But it doesn't make them all better players.
14:22It doesn't make everything better.
14:24We're trying.
14:25We're trying to give them everything they can or everything we can.
14:27But it's not that easy.
14:28You've still got the opposition out there.
14:29They're not bothered about the stadium.
14:30And a good send-off for the stadium, aren't they?
14:32They just want to win games.
14:33So I've never lost sight of that.
14:35If we can give the fans a great send-off to the stadium, we'll be trying our hardest to do so,
14:39like we have been doing.
14:41But it's not that easy.
14:42It doesn't mean because you're just in a great old stadium and saying goodbye to everyone,
14:45all the players have suddenly become double the players they were.
14:48Just in terms of the squad, you obviously lost Damazu Onana in the summer.
14:51You brought in Indai and Lindstrom.
14:54Do you feel like you are, at the minute, getting the best out of this squad?
14:59Well, we're working hard to.
15:01We're trying to mix and match the squad, trying to find better ways of operating,
15:04score more goals, trying to win games, of course.
15:06That's a given.
15:07So, yes, we're just trying to mould the team into the best possible unit to go and win games.
15:12Like I said, we brought in four players who have never played in the Premier League.
15:16So it's not a given to just expect them to hit the ground.
15:19They know everything about it.
15:20They can deliver performances and glue together as a side.
15:22It's not that easy.
15:24So it's about the development of a side.
15:26And that's what I've been saying recently.
15:27And we're trying to fast-track that development as quick as we possibly can, obviously.
15:31And just in terms of the formation, obviously some fans say maybe trying a wing-back system.
15:36Do you think, honestly, do you think you have the players to do that?
15:39No, it's a fine line.
15:40We've just only conceded four goals in the last eight games.
15:44So then you go, right, OK, well, where are you taking it away from to add two?
15:48You know, that's the truth of it.
15:49You know, we've got to be careful about how many changes we make,
15:52especially when part of the team is operating in such a strong fashion.
15:55You know, to only concede four in eight games is very, very low, very strong.
15:59You know, it's that risk or reward of balancing out.
16:02Like I said, you've got to find both ends of the pitch.
16:04We've corrected one.
16:05We've got to now establish ourselves better in the attacking third.
16:08It's not always down to shapes.
16:10It's down to someone putting it in the net.
16:12And we've had plenty of chances to do that, and we haven't done it.
16:14So that's what we've got to correct beyond shapes.
16:17But we certainly think about the shapes, yeah.
16:19And we work with the players and look at different variations,
16:21both before games and during games.