Sean Dyche hits out at Everton touchline ban as calls for Goodison Park ‘privacy’ go unheard.
Everton manager Sean Dyche believes that dugout regulations should be relaxed as he prepares to spend the journey to Manchester City in the stands.
Everton manager Sean Dyche has questioned a lack of common sense in game management, criticising his touchline ban and the clumsy use of VAR.
Dyche will watch Everton’s game against Manchester City from the stands as he serves a bench suspension for three yellow cards this season. Two of those were awarded at Goodison Park, where he believes the size of his technical area puts him in a collision with fourth officials.
After last Saturday’s play against Tottenham Hotspur, he laughed off the official reply to his amazement that a free-kick was not granted for what he considered was a foul on Beto. His dissatisfaction with his bookings is still evident.
It is one of numerous aspects of the game he has recently expressed confusion over, including referees checking decisions on pitchside monitors and the lengthy decision-making procedure generally used by VAR.
Dyche was booked in the dying stages of the stalemate with Spurs after Beto appeared to be fouled on the edge of the visitors’ box as the Blues sought a late equaliser. Dejan Kulusevski’s trip led to Jarrad Branthwaite’s equalizing free kick. Dyche drew a yellow card for his reaction.
After protesting the decision not to dismiss Ibrahima Konate for a second bookable offense at Liverpool, he received another booking against Newcastle United at home.
Dyche stated before of the match against Manchester City, which he will be unable to see from the dugout, that “the only thing I was disappointed in was three bad decisions by the referee… they were factually bad decisions.”
Dyche added one of his concerns about the way managers are monitored is how stringent fourth officials are about bosses
staying within their technical area. This is something he frequently disagrees with authorities over, and one of the reasons he gave was the size of the boxes at Goodison.
He stated of his interactions with officials: “It’s just something that needs to be interpreted. There’s no hard and fast rule.
It’s simply handling a technical area for each fourth official. All I said at the start of the season was that we had possibly the
smallest technical area in the division, so where do you go? You need some privacy.
The crowd is right next to us, so don’t get too close or they’ll hear you, and don’t speak in front of the substitutes because they’ll
hear you; I said this at the pre-season meeting. Is everyone going to keep this in mind? Apparently, possibly not.”
Dyche said he had seen Konate’s two yellow cards in Liverpool’s most recent game at Arsenal and was struck by the contrast
in how similar offences were dealt with in that match compared to the leniency the defender was afforded against his side at Anfield
Neither of those incidents were ones in which VAR could intervene as the technology is not used to rule on second bookable
offences. But Everton have been on the receiving end of a series of contentious decisions this season and the implementation of
VAR has frustrated a manager who is supportive of technology being used if it helps better decisions to be made more quickly.
He stated, “I am still a fan of it; it is just the streamlining and timing of it. You’ve heard me mention the referee walking over to
the screen; I’m sure the statistics show that there’s a 98%, 99% likelihood that the referee on the pitch does what they’re told [once they’ve been ordered to the screen].
Why waste everyone’s time, including the spectators’, by staring at a screen for an extended period of time when they can speed
up the game? That’s a very simple way to speed up the gameplay. Simply take it away. “Just go right; it has been decided.”
Dyche expressed confusion over the decision-making process, citing a lengthy and unnecessary pause when Alex Moreno’s shot was ruled out for offside against Everton last month.
When asked how often managers have the option to address concerns about how games are refereed, he answered, “Normally a
couple of times per season.” Because of the randomization of managers and roles, you will almost always get a Zoom call during
the pre-season. A brief review will take place a few months into the season, followed by another few months. But we can’t
change it. We can just share our viewpoint.
“The typical problems come up: handball, which no one completely understands, VAR, which no one quite understands this
season, and the speeding up of the game. I’m having trouble figuring out the offside rule in recent games.
For example, the offside against Arnaut Danjuma during Moreno’s disallowed goal took only four minutes.
At the end of the day, it was a foul on Danjuma [in the build-up], so if you are in the [VAR] room, surely there is someone who
says, ‘That is a foul – don’t even care about the lines or whether he is offside’. “Just go bang, it’s a foul; move on.”
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