Dyche's Verdict On Man United Defeat

Sean Dyche has labelled Sunday afternoon’s 4-0 defeat to Manchester United as “incredibly frustrating” while recognising his side must rediscover their defensive strengths ahead of their upcoming Goodison double-header.

Mistakes proved costly for the Blues at Old Trafford, with the hosts – led by Ruben Amorim in his third game in charge – forcing errors from Everton’s backline and netting four goals through braces from Marcus Rashford and Joshua Zirkzee.

An open first half an hour saw Everton well in the game, registering four chances and coming close through Beto, who, making his first Premier League start of the season, rounded goalkeeper Andre Onana on 21 minutes, before firing wide from a narrow angle.

“It’s a real tough one to take for me as manager,” Dyche told evertontv, speaking after the game. They all are when you don't win, of course, but we were playing well for 30-odd minutes and looking a threat, looking solid; good energy to the side and some good play.

“[We were] getting into key moments. We know that's been a challenge ever since I've been in the Club and probably before that as well, finding the killer moments.

“For me it's incredibly frustrating, of course, and for the team. The third one is my biggest problem. You can't do that. We just had half-time to pull it all together, remind ourselves of the goods of the half and what we're going to do in the second half.

“And that was a real killer. I can't legislate for that, that's for sure. As you know we had a spate of mistakes at the beginning of the season. We had eradicated that, and we looked way stronger, but it's quite obvious player mistakes are very difficult to take as a manager and for the players, of course.

“But anyway, the rest of the game then pans out in their favour, quite obviously, and we just have to protect players in the end because we have another big game coming up.”

A busy schedule follows for Everton, who welcome Wolves on Wednesday (7.30pm GMT), before taking on Liverpool at Goodison Park on Saturday (12.30pm GMT) in the Merseyside derby.

Confident his side can bounce back from a disappointing defeat, Dyche recognises his side must return to their defensive solidity – a trait which helped them to keep four clean sheets out of six games heading into Sunday’s game – while also trying to find more potency in front of goal.

“Well, the strangest thing is we've been down this road before, unfortunately, where the pressure comes on and we have to respond, and then we do respond, and we win a game, and we change it somewhat,” he added.

“It's been a hard narrative to change for a long time both with me and before me. We consistently are working hard to change it. We move forward, we drop back, we move forward, we drop back.

“Finding that consistency today, like I say, 32 minutes in, I'm liking what I'm seeing, and I think most people would be.

“And then we can't find that killer edge and then the mistakes come in and it's got away from you too quickly. So, [we need to be] eradicating the mistakes and going again and bringing that mentality that we've shown many times before.”