Sean Dyche sends Man City warning as Everton boss makes PSR admission

Sean Dyche was speaking after Everton held Manchester City to a 1-1 draw at the Etihad Stadium

Sean Dyche reckons Manchester City are going to “open up” an opponent soon but insists his players worked hard to ensure it wasn’t them as they look to bring more stability on and off the pitch following the takeover by the Friedkin Group. Pep Guardiola’s side have won the Premier League for the previous four seasons but the 1-1 draw with Everton leaves them with just one victory from their last 13 matches in all competitions.

Dyche said: “It’s the first sort of period of questions, I wouldn’t say negativity. I didn’t feel that in the stadium but there were more question marks than usual and you understand why.

“The prowess they show, year after year, and the manager has shown, it’s pretty impressive after all those years, trophies and the rest of it. There’s certainly a maximum amount of respect for it.

“They’re getting questioned, heavily questioned, for the first time. Does that give you a better opportunity? Maybe yes than when they’re free-flowing because I’ve been here when they’ve been free-flowing and hurt our teams many times.

“This was slightly different because it still takes the power of a group to turn that back on. I do think they’re due one, they will open someone up with the amount of good players they’ve got, but our team worked very hard to make sure it didn’t happen to us.”

Following the completion of TFG’s takeover last week, Dyche spoke to officials from the Texan group about their plans for Everton and he hopes that it is a continuation of his own work. He said: “There was a lot of downtrodden feeling, on and off the pitch, and to constantly push that away and stay positive, and try and correct as many things as possible, including the finances and the team structure and belief in the team and the belief in the fans has taken time. It’s been a lot of hard work and there’s still a long way to go.

“The new owners have talked about stability and that’s their first goal, both on and off the pitch. It takes time with that because of the PSR rules, I must make clear there’s no trouble there, I explained that last week, what I mean is all clubs are going to have to look at that and be inside of the right rules, which we’ll have to do ourselves, so it’s not an immediate fix.

“What I’m getting to is that the story is just starting to turn again. It’s beginning to get to a more positive feel and the fans get see a bit more light, wondering who is going to own what, and there’s still a long way to go but there has been a lot of hard work done.”