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2024/25 Sean Dyche - Sacked

Lanolin said:
People really do seem to have forgotten this, it's quite weird. This was the point I (unsuccessfully) made a few times over the weekend - looking at where we finished last season and using that as a yardstick of what to expect this season is flawed logic because our finishing position wasn't really in keeping with what happened over the course of the season. We put a little run together at the end and suddenly it was as if people thought all our problems were solved and we were now an upwardly mobile team, it's bizarre. Again, whether you choose to see this as a defence or a criticism of Dyche depends on your own biases, but for me we are still very much a team I would expect to be in the lower reaches of the table and a little burst of good form in the last month or so of last season doesn't make me reassess the overall level of the squad I've watched struggle for the last 3/4 years.
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Aren’t runs here and there what a season is made of though? If we’re going to say that was an outlier, then surely the 13 game winless run, season to season is an outlier as well? If we don’t have either runs, do we pick up broadly similar points anyway?

Whether you see us as 12th or say, quality wise 16th surely the aim should be for the manager to maintain (give or take) or improves where possible (so if we take the latter position, say a finish target 13th or 14th) but it looks currently like the team will be down on this, which is on the manager. At the end of the day we do have to have targets and there’s no point having regressive targets.
 
Blue peter said:
Aren’t runs here and there what a season is made of though? If we’re going to say that was an outlier, then surely the 13 game winless run, season to season is an outlier as well? If we don’t have either runs, do we pick up broadly similar points anyway?

Whether you see us as 12th or say, quality wise 16th surely the aim should be for the manager to maintain (give or take) or improves where possible (so if we take the latter position, say a finish target 13th or 14th) but it looks currently like the team will be down on this, which is on the manager. At the end of the day we do have to have targets and there’s no point having regressive targets.
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Of course, I’m not saying we didn’t deserve the points we got or whatever, I’m effectively addressing the very point you (evidently inadvertently) make yourself. ‘It currently looks like the team will be down on that’ doesn’t actually mean anything, because we have no idea whether another one of those little runs is coming or not do we? Nobody was sat there after we lost 6-0 at Stamford bridge saying it’s fine lads we’ll get 16 points from the next 6 games but that’s what happened.

My point is I expect us to be in the bottom 7 or 8 and the margins are tight down there, lose against Brentford and I think we’re getting to a point where we’re significantly down on what I’d expect but win and we’re not. That’s just how football works, always has always will.

In terms of setting targets I would put decent money on the clubs target just being to stay up, I don’t think they have any other aim than to remain in the league until the takeover is complete and we’re in the new stadium. We can have targets as fans but they don’t mean anything, and if it isn’t ’win something’ then it’s a bit crap anyway to be honest.
 

…..maybe stating the obvious;

IMG_1176.webp
 
Lanolin said:
Of course, I’m not saying we didn’t deserve the points we got or whatever, I’m effectively addressing the very point you (evidently inadvertently) make yourself. ‘It currently looks like the team will be down on that’ doesn’t actually mean anything, because we have no idea whether another one of those little runs is coming or not do we? Nobody was sat there after we lost 6-0 at Stamford bridge saying it’s fine lads we’ll get 16 points from the next 6 games but that’s what happened.

My point is I expect us to be in the bottom 7 or 8 and the margins are tight down there, lose against Brentford and I think we’re getting to a point where we’re significantly down on what I’d expect but win and we’re not. That’s just how football works, always has always will.

In terms of setting targets I would put decent money on the clubs target just being to stay up, I don’t think they have any other aim than to remain in the league until the takeover is complete and we’re in the new stadium. We can have targets as fans but they don’t mean anything, and if it isn’t ’win something’ then it’s a bit crap anyway to be honest.
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There's a lot of good sense in this.

Personally I think it's not unreasonable to benchmark to a previous season, but there does out to be some context.

The lumpiness has to be factored in as stated. Id also add
1) We didn't have a lot of injuries, this season we have
2) We lost a lot of players, and are one of the few teams to have a net transfer profit
3) We won a lot of games by a narrow margin last season.
4) If you factor in the 2 prior seasons, we have 39 and 36 points. That's probably a bigger, and better data set than just last season.

Which point above people wish to give most weight to is open to discussion, and honestly I don't have enormous preference. But in each has to be factored in. I remember under Moyes, we would win a lot of games narrowly, then lose a lot of games narrowly the following year/season. It wasn't that he was an inherently inconsistent manager, but the margins he was working to are fine.

There seems to be an assumption we have a strong squad. I personally don't see that. I remember seeing Fulham at Goodison recently, undoubtedly well coached, but thinking probably 7/8/9 of their outfield players get into our team. And without being disrespectful to Fulham, they are not one of the traditional big 6, or Villa/Brighton/Newcastle who seem to be the closest challengers. They are a mid table team, and their squad looks far better than ours.
 

catcherintherye said:
There's a lot of good sense in this.

Personally I think it's not unreasonable to benchmark to a previous season, but there does out to be some context.

The lumpiness has to be factored in as stated. Id also add
1) We didn't have a lot of injuries, this season we have
2) We lost a lot of players, and are one of the few teams to have a net transfer profit
3) We won a lot of games by a narrow margin last season.
4) If you factor in the 2 prior seasons, we have 39 and 36 points. That's probably a bigger, and better data set than just last season.

Which point above people wish to give most weight to is open to discussion, and honestly I don't have enormous preference. But in each has to be factored in. I remember under Moyes, we would win a lot of games narrowly, then lose a lot of games narrowly the following year/season. It wasn't that he was an inherently inconsistent manager, but the margins he was working to are fine.

There seems to be an assumption we have a strong squad. I personally don't see that. I remember seeing Fulham at Goodison recently, undoubtedly well coached, but thinking probably 7/8/9 of their outfield players get into our team. And without being disrespectful to Fulham, they are not one of the traditional big 6, or Villa/Brighton/Newcastle who seem to be the closest challengers. They are a mid table team, and their squad looks far better than ours.
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Yes, that's pretty much how I see it. The nucleus of the squad has been struggling under various managers for the last 4 years, and despite what seems to be the prevalent attitude on here I just don't see the squad as having been significantly strengthened this year.

I think the tight games thing is a really key issue, and again is somewhere that I just don't understand where some people are coming from when they're talking about this season. I've seen numerous people saying we just don't look like winning games this season which makes no sense to me. Other than the feeling of 'Everton that' I can't see how anyone could have thought we didn't look like winning the Bournemouth, Villa or Southampton games, and Newcastle and West Ham were games where we weren't necessarily on top but clearly had a shout of nicking it. That's how our games will generally go I think, regardless of who the manager is.

Like you, I don't really have a dog in the fight on this. I've been accused of defending Dyche all the time but it's not because I think he's amazing or anything (I didn't want him to begin with and I don't enjoy the football we play), it's just because I don't really believe we're significantly underperforming and I believe he can deliver the club's objective for this season. As i've said a few times though, things change quickly in football and another defeat on Saturday will tip the scales a bit.
 

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