'Go soft very quickly' - Sean Dyche pulls no punches in blunt message to beaten Everton
Sean Dyche said he could have made 11 changes at half-time as he reflected on the performance of his players in the defeat to Aston Villa.
The Blues boss acknowledged the hosts were far superior than his side and said that, after Everton went behind to John McGinn’s volley, he could smell “the group go soft very quickly”. Within minutes Jordan Pickford was adjudged to have brought down Ollie Watkins and Douglas Luiz doubled Villa’s advantage from the penalty spot.
Dyche has been vocal about the psychological fragility he believed to exist within the Everton dressing room when he arrived at the club in January and has sought to build resilience in the seven months since.
He accepted this performance was a throwback to some of the more concerning moments of last season. On the defending in particular, he said: “The body language, the intent, all of the things I talk about that are important in and out of possession just weren’t there.”
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Everton are now bottom of the Premier League after two games, the 4-0 defeat at Villa Park coming off the back of the home defeat to Fulham - though that was underpinned by a more positive display.
Asked for his thoughts on an alarming afternoon in Birmingham, Dyche said: “They were the better side. We were a long way off, particularly after being a long way on last weekend because I thought we played very well. So that was a bit of a surprise to me. We actually started not too bad. But the thing it reminded me of was, before I got here, we conceded a goal and you just smelt the group go soft very quickly and you concede another one and it’s like everyone
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