Trapped in a loveless marriage

Let’s face it, it seems we are trapped in a loveless marriage with Sean Dyche.

The initial serendipity which drew us together is not only fading, but it’s far in the distance in the rear view mirror.

The fizz has now gone flat in the relationship.

The magic has gone. It wasn’t even really ever magic, it was adequate delusion at best.

We aren’t even really talking to each other like adults anymore. Ask your mother to pass the salt; tell your father to ask Jack to not hit the first man with a cross or set piece; tell your mother to ask Idrissa to please not shoot.

We are trying to overcome what at first we thought was a bad patch, but now at heart we both know it’s over and we need to go our separate ways.

There isn’t even a realistic proposition of staying together for the sake of the kids. The kids can sense it’s over, have started becoming a problem in school, aren’t obeying basic instructions, and are underachieving.

It was really only ever a transactional partnership based on our respective needs.

We needed someone to take us by the hand and guide us to safety. It turned out we needed that not once, but twice, thanks to some skeletons in the closet which holed us below the waterline.

But together we dragged ourselves back from the brink (twice) and didn’t sink.

It was only then, with hope on our horizon, that we realised we aren’t actually suited to a long-term attachment. You are too set in your ways, and what was at first comforting to us is now too routine, too mundane, too unfulfilling.

At least neither of us are pretending that we can change. We aren’t lying to ourselves or each other about that.

Life is short, we want more. We want to feel alive again. We want to feel that buzz, to feel like we have something to look forward to, to feel like there is more than domestic drudgery.

As a fan, I will forever be grateful to Sean Dyche for keeping us up in extraordinary circumstances in both 2022/23 and 23/24.

It’s odd that someone who saved us twice isn’t already a hero, a forever legend of the club who has forged an unbreakable bond with the fans.

In truth, there has always felt a distance between us and him (arguably on both sides). There has always been the feeling of professional detachment.

Nobody needs reminding of just how extraordinary, and nobody needs to relive that trauma and sheer anxiety.

But we have moved on. We had no need to be weighed down by those seasons, and we had hope in our final season at Goodison (even if it was built on a still too-thin squad and a desperate lack of creativity).

Personally, part of me did think our fans were a bit hysterical about form and results too early into this season. But now I’m realising that while they weren’t fully correct, they were clearly onto something.

I didn’t like our style of football (if that is even a style?), but like most downtrodden Blues fans I was prepared to accept it as a necessary means to an end. It was functional, unentertaining, and joy-sapping, but on the balance of games it eventually was getting us high enough up the table to avoid relegation.

But we expected a bit more this season, expected to not even be in a relegation conversation. We expected mid to lower reaches of the table mediocrity (and by God we knew its was going to be mediocre).

However we, as a team, have become so reductive, so predictable, so incoherent, so bankrupt of ideas, so toothless, and so joyless that it is now intolerable.

As a fan you get the impression it’s not just the Goodison groan gang who are hating this. You get a real sense the players are really not enjoying things either, and it’s palpable that the manager is also far from happy.

Maybe as fans we are overly-sensitive, but from day one this season there have been a few what felt like passive aggressive remarks directed at the fanbase.

Not that the fans don’t deserve to be criticised at times - contrary to what we like to believe we are not paragons of support and loyalty. Goodison is a difficult ground now for the home team. We are quick to go quiet, quick to voice our frustrations and a minority are far too quick to toxically boo some of our own players.

But Dyche and the club should also have been savvy enough to realise the fans have good reasons to be frustrated, and have every right to expect more than functional (or not even functional now) sterility when they hand over their cash to get into the ground or watch on TV.

Driving a wedge between management, players and fans was maybe not intentional, but the feeling is growing that there is now a fissure which is becoming a chasm.

Maybe it’s understandable given the uncertainty of his own future (or maybe that should say given the apparent certainty that he won’t be given a new contract).

Lame duck presidents never achieve anything, and it’s hard to impose authority and direction if everyone knows you won’t be around for long to affect anyone’s careers.

Same for the players out of contract at the end of the season. I don’t subscribe to the view that some aren’t trying, I just think the system of play is wearing them down too. They’ll get a new club somewhere, and maybe they too are tired of the emotional toll that has weighed heavily on us all these past few seasons. They’ll get a fresh start, but we won’t.

Maybe that’s subconsciously what the boss thinks too. He knows he’s best as a firefighting manager, and nobody employs them in the summer. They get jobs between now and the end of the January transfer window.

Maybe he would welcome a fresh start too, and definitely if it’s already been communicated to him that his contract will not be renewed regardless how high up the table we finish this season.

But something has to change, preferably the manager’s philosophy and style of play to help not just break this bleak struggle to score goals and win matches, but to give the fans something to get behind as loudly and passionately as we all know we can.

Sadly though, I’m not sure anyone believes that’s possible - neither manager, players, nor fans.

Is there a Tinder for single managers?