Nine managers in 10 years – Everton sack Sean Dyche on eve of FA Cup clash with Peterborough

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Fired 

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Everton have confirmed that Sean Dyche has been relieved of his duties as first team manager two years after joining the Merseyside club. Rather dramatically, the news came just a few hours before the club’s FA Cup clash with Peterborough, surprising both fans of the club and perhaps even Dyche’s backroom staff. In a statement on the club website confirming the news, Everton also stated that under-18s head coach Leighton Baines and club captain Seamus Coleman would take over first-team affairs on an interim basis, while the search for a new manager began. Dyche’s sacking now means that Everton have had no less than nine full-time managers in the last 10 years. 

The decision comes less than a month after Everton was handed over to new ownership, with the Friedkin Group (TFG) completing their takeover of the Premier League side at the end of 2024, replacing Farhard Moshiri as the club’s ultimate decision makers. The new board clearly felt that Dyche’s team were performing well below expectation, having failed to win a Premier League fixture since the 4-0 victory over Wolves at the start of December. Since then the Merseyside club had gone five games without a win and had picked up just five points in the process. This, in turn, has left Everton precariously close to the bottom of the league table, with just one point separating them and Ipswich in eighteenth place. And it seems as though the club have opted for a new manager in a bid to turn their season around. 

Over the course of his two years in charge of the Everton squad, Dyche took charge of 74 games in the Premier League, winning 21, drawing 23 and losing 30. In that time period his side amassed 86 points, which means he averated 1.16 points per game. As we can see in the table above, that was a notable improvement on his predecessor, Frank Lampard, who managed just 0.92 points per game. The former Chelsea midfielder had stepped in to replace Rafa Benítez, who managed just 1.0 points per game before he was sacked after just 19 games in charge of the club. However, while Dyche may have done better than the aforementioned pair that came before him, he lagged considerably behind both Marco Silva (1.28) and Carlo Ancelotti (1.53), who both enjoyed somewhat comfortable finishes in the Premier League’s mid-table.

As such, while Dyche may point to the club’s fifteenth place finish and avoiding relegation in the league last season despite being deducted six points for breaching Financial Fair Play rules, as one of his greatest achievements as a manager, what has come since then is considerably below where Everton and their new owners would like to see the club. And it seems as though the Friedkin Group feel as though they can entice a manager to the club that can do better in the second half of the season.