There are only 13 Premier League games left at Goodison Park. Sean Dyche remains none the wiser as to whether he will be in charge when the club relocates.
Failure to defeat a Brentford side reduced to 10 men for 49 minutes does nothing to help his cause in seeking a contract extension when the Friedkin Group complete their takeover, the brief jeers at full-time more in frustration at another stalemate than full protest, but typifying another fraught Merseyside afternoon.
“They [the boos] can be directed at whoever they are directed at. They expect to win and I expect to win,” said Dyche of the fans’ reaction.
He can analyse this match and point to his side’s rapid start when they had five goal attempts in the first six minutes. He can argue Vitaliy Mykolenko and Beto could have won it in the second half, the latter denied by Ethan Pinnock’s 93rd-minute block.
And he could state with justification that when it was 11-versus-11, Everton looked the most likely winner.
But Dyche has enough football literacy to read a room and knows if he ever got close to winning this stadium over with his best results, too many of them seem lost now. There is an expectation that Friedkin’s rebuilding plan will include a new coach for 2025-26 rather than a new deal for the current one, so until then the club is operating in a limbo where Dyche remains the best man to keep the club in the division while the spectators crave the first decisive steps towards a better future.
It would be a surprise if Everton’s next owners do not engage in frank conversations.
Saturday’s opponent, Thomas Frank, would be an ideal candidate presuming he sees the Everton job as a step up in status if not necessarily league position based on recent years. The Dane’s philosophy possesses plenty of Goodison tradition: set-plays drilled in military style and a flexible approach based on sound defensive organisation. The manner in which his players stood firm after Christian Norgaard’s 41 minute sending-off was impressive.
Frank also has that exotic overseas charisma which seduces fans more than the perceived rough and ready Britishness of Dyche, who since day one has been branded by the Gwladys Street in the same way as Sam Allardyce during his brief survival mission. The charm offensive extended to Frank complimenting his players on taming a ‘fantastic’ home crowd.
The Goodison panic this time – and it was tangible even during the home side’s better moments in a game they should have won – is due to a sense of foreboding. Everton’s next seven fixtures include Manchester United, Liverpool, Arsenal, Chelsea and Manchester City. Their fifth draw in eight games, the last three without a goal, was bound to make the atmosphere edgy.
This was a wasted opportunity given Brentford’s numerical disadvantage.
At first glance, Norgaard’s offending challenge on Jordan Pickford looked like an innocuous attempt to connect with the ball at the far post.
A slow motion replay later and Norgaard’s studs had clearly caught the England No 1 on his knee. Referee Chris Kavanagh was compelled by VAR to have another look. On doing so, the red card was produced and Frank was booked in the aftermath.
“For me it is not a red. We will most likely appeal this,” said Frank. “I see a situation where Christian’s eyes are on the ball and there is no intention. He was pulling out of full force. If the law of the game is that is a red card, the law has changed.”
For Everton, the pressure to win intensified. Iliman Ndiaye, the winger who when on form looks like he trained at Hogwarts, was a potential match-winner from the early stages.
But the general lack of guile, patience and imagination proved exasperating. Instead, Brentford’s courage earned their first away point of the season, leaving Dyche in the dangerous territory he and predecessors Frank Lampard, Rafa Benitez, Marco Silva and Allardyce know all too well.
