Everton stars will feel no guilt over Sean Dyche’s sacking, writes GRAEME SOUNESS: David Moyes is the sensible hire – but beware what awaits in that dressing room

David Moyes is the most sensible decision Everton’s new owners can make at this juncture.

What better man is there, who knows the place, knows the culture and understands the Premier League? There are no surprises in store for him whereas a foreign manager could possibly take half a dozen games to get into his stride, drop points, sail adrift in the relegation battle and then stay adrift. Everton simply can’t afford that.

Appointing Moyes is the nearest thing to hitting the ground running and represents their best chance of staying in the Premier League. They have to be in the top flight heading into their new stadium. The only surprise for Moyes may be what awaits him in that dressing room.

For Sean Dyche, the exiting manager, he has been round the block enough times to know that when new owners come in to a football club it can make the manager vulnerable. Everton has proved a difficult job for many before him in recent years. Even Carlo Ancelotti, regarded as one of the best managers in the world, struggled. Others such as Rafael Benitez, Frank Lampard all suffered with an owner in Farhad Moshiri who seemed to continually take bad advice off those around him. It has resulted in poor recruitment and poor quality players.

I’ve said before that at football clubs it is 90 per cent about the players and 10 per cent about the manager. So what does Sean Dyche’s sacking tell us about the make-up of this Everton squad?

Dyche was Everton’s eighth manager in eight years. He warned his squad last year that he wouldn’t be their ‘fall guy’, he wouldn’t quit, he was going to fight and they wouldn’t get him the sack like previous managers. Well, here we are.

There’s five players there in Jordan Pickford, Michael Keane, Seamus Coleman, Abdoulaye Doucoure and Dominic Calvert-Lewin, who have worked under four managers in five years, some of them have had even more.

That’s not a statistic they or any of their teammates should be proud of.

Too many players today, when they see a manager sacked, shrug their shoulders and say: ‘It’s got nothing to do with me.’

They are part of this ‘Not Me’ culture that exists across Britain today. ‘It’s not my fault. Nothing to see here. I’m not to blame. Don’t look at me. Full stop!’

It makes me so angry. How can you not go home, look in the mirror and think: ‘Am I not part of the problem?’

It’s something I’ve never thought about before but I’ve never been part of a squad that got a manager the sack. I wouldn’t want that on my CV.

I wonder if any of these Everton players lie awake at night and ask could I have done more?

I wonder how many, when they were informed of Dyche’s departure at the Titanic Hotel on Thursday, felt any guilt over another manager leaving the club. Do any of them question themselves: ‘Am I really a Premier League player, fit to play for this great club Everton?’ Of course not. It’s always the manager’s fault.

Well, your average Evertonian may offer a different point of view. And maybe that’s: ‘You’re not good enough. Full stop!’

I’m sorry to mention it again but that’s why managers need reliable senior professionals to eradicate these issues. To prevent them reoccurring. Exerting standards, or finding that extra yard.

I’m glad I had the good sense to get out of management when I did because I could foresee how dealing with the modern player would do serious damage to the relationships I had with my family and others close to me.

Moyes will be aware of the modern player’s mentality with what he witnessed at West Ham but he’ll see the record of what has gone before him in this Everton dressing room.

His experience means it is the most commonsense appointment and Everton’s best chance of surviving another mess.

Howe’s stroke of genius 

The idea to switch Joelinton from a striker to a midfielder must be one of the best decisions Eddie Howe has ever made.

The transformation has been incredible.

When he arrived from Hoffenheim with a £40million pricetag, it was evident immediately that he was going to struggle to be a goalscoring centre forward with his qualities in our league.

But his change to midfielder has made him a player that no-one in the Premier League will enjoy playing against. He’s big, strong, is up for the fight, athletic, and a good passer of the ball. He complements those around him extremely well. The only criticism I have is that he is capable of scoring more goals like he did against Manchester United last month.

I can only liken his transition to that of Ray Kennedy whom I played alongside at Liverpool.

Ray had been a centre forward with Double-winning Arsenal before Bob Paisley converted him to left-sided midfielder at Liverpool. He mastered the art of arriving late in the box and regularly scored double figures each season from midfield. Even taking into account Liverpool’s high standards and fantastic history, Ray was another one of my contemporaries that should always be revered as a ‘great’.

When I was manager at Newcastle, and Ray was suffering from that horrendous disease, Parkinson’s, I brought him along to a few of our European nights. He always made the game look easy, as if he’d cracked it. He was Liverpool’s Mr Reliable. Joelinton falls into that category for Newcastle now. His teammates know they can rely on him.

Forest are the biggest threat to Liverpool 

It was 50 years ago this week that Brian Clough walked into Nottingham Forest and created the greatest success story ever told in English football.

To go from promotion out of Division Two to winning the League then European Cup in 24 months with a provincial team and small squad was phenomenal.

To make it worse, Cloughie’s side had the Indian sign over our Liverpool team for a couple of years also, beating us to the title, beating us in the European Cup and winning the League Cup too. It took us until an FA Cup tie in 1980 for us to shake off their hoodoo, beating them 2-0, notably after Peter Shilton dropped a cross under a challenge from Ray Kennedy for Kenny Dalglish to score.

Much like today, they were a team that relied on togetherness, built around defending well then hitting their opponents on the counter attack. In their midst they had John Robertson, the most underrated footballer of my generation, and one I knew well having played with him since our days as 15-year-olds with Scotland Schoolboys.

Robbo was the most unlikely looking of footballers. He looked like he had a little paunch, he’d wear these battered old desert boots and you’d barely see him without a fag in his hand. But he could have played for any team in the world and I mean Real Madrid, Barcelona or Bayern Munich, he was that good.

I can remember playing in the searing Malaga heat of the 1982 World Cup for Scotland and after an hour I was blowing. But I Iooked to my left and there he was still going, chugging up and down the wing, taking on the opposition and he did that for 90 minutes. You’d be thinking ‘how does he do that?’

Clough described him as ‘the Picasso of our game’. He once said of him: ‘I was lucky enough to manage some great players. But the greatest was a little Scotsman called John Robertson. He won me a few European Cups you know.’ When Clough was asked ahead of their European Cup final against Hamburg how they would handle Germany’s attacking right-back Manny Kaltz, he said: ‘We’ve got a little fat lad who will turn him inside out.’ Robbo was a privilege to play alongside, one of the true greats of our game.

It’s fitting, the synchronicity of 50 years on, we see Forest challenging Liverpool once again. Nuno has them defending well, breaking at pace. They are full of confidence. They have beaten Liverpool once this season and Liverpool still have to go to their place. Barring any big injuries, right now, they are Liverpool’s biggest threat to the title.

West Ham technical director should be axed 

It’s sad to see another managerial change in Julen Lopetegui losing his job to be replaced by Graham Potter at West Ham.

I mentioned the warning signs were there with his players going through the motions defensively against Liverpool the other week.

The one question I would ask is how much input did he have on the players they brought in? How much of the £130million they spent last summer was his choice.

If that is down to the technical director Tim Steidten, then surely his work should be equally scrutinised. Should he not be going as well?