SEAN DYCHE will be named new Everton manager TODAY after Marcelo Bielsa rejected the chance to replace Frank Lampard.
Dyche will not be majority owner Farhad Moshiri’s first choice to try to save his club from a first relegation since 1951 and potential financial disaster.
But the 51-year-old has become the last man standing and will return to the Prem after being sacked by Burnley in April with the Clarets on the way down to the Championship.
Former Toffees boss Sam Allardyce was considered, as was Davide Ancelotti, the son of another of Moshiri’s former managers.
Ralph Hassenhutl, unemployed since his dismissal from Southampton, also made the shortlist.
Yet all three were not considered the right fit for the second–bottom club in dire straits off the pitch as well as on it.
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The ideal appointment for Moshiri would have been managerial guru Bielsa who guided Leeds back to the top flight after 14 years in exile.
He flew into Heathrow from Brazil on Thursday raising hopes he would agree to the Goodison gig.
But Everton were offering him less than the £6million per year salary that was his personal salary.
He had grave reservations about the quality of the squad, especially over a lack of pace within the defence.
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The Argentinian, 67, also told Moshiri and his embattled board that if he were to become Moshiri’s eighth manager since his takeover in 2016 it would have to be in the summer.
Only then, given a full pre–season, would he feel he could get the players he wanted to keep up to the brutal fitness levels he demands of teams he is in control of.
Whether Dyche will be seen as the right fit by disillusioned Everton fans remains to be seen.
They demanded that Allardyce be ditched at the end of season 2017-18 because they did not like his old school style of football – even though he stopped a worrying decline after replacing Ronald Koeman and left with the side eighth in the table.
Dyche spent nine and a half years at the Clarets insisting that blood be spilled by his players within his siege mentality tactics not much dissimilar to Allardyce’s
He left in a sixth successive season in the Prem at a club with a tiny transfer budget but based on big-heart defending, long-ball football and set-play goals.
One of the stars of that era, Michael Keane, who left for Everton in a £20m deal in 2017, could become crucial again to Dyche.
The central defender, 30, has been touted to leave in the January window after being dumped by Lampard and West Ham and Southampton have him in their sights.
Yet he developed into an England centre half under Dyche’s tutelage.
The new boss, meanwhile, starts the daunting task of saving the Blues with clashes against Prem leaders Arsenal followed by the Merseyside derby.
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He may be forced to do so without winger Anthony Gordon who turned up for training on Friday after missing three days’ work – determined to force a £40m move to Newcastle United with Chelsea also in the picture.
But Dyche, should his appointment be confirmed as expected, will re-unite with two others from Burnley’s brave days in the top flight – central defender James Tarkowski and winger Dwight McNeil.
Source: Soccer - thesun.co.uk
