Following Everton’s defeat to Arsenal, Sean Dyche was left upset by the decision-making process.
The Blues manager believes his team should have been awarded a penalty in the first half and questioned the amount of extra time at the end of the game, with fourth official Anthony Taylor signaling for only 240 seconds during a season in which many games have gone over 100 minutes.
Dyche said that his squad fell against a good Arsenal side that played better at Goodison Park and won thanks to Leandro Trossard’s second-half strike.
But he was plainly irritated by the officiating on a day when Everton’s wait for their first Premier League victory was stretched by another week.
Dyche believed that Abdoulaye Doucoure’s burst into the box midway through the first half should have resulted in a penalty with the game scoreless. After Doucoure surged into the area and went down under a challenge from William Saliba, referee Simon Hooper waved down the home side’s claims.
“I can’t figure out why we don’t get a penalty for Doucoure, because in the second half Beto pushed it past a centre-half and he [Gabriel] got booked [for bringing him down,” Dyche stated after the game. It was a challenge that was quite familiar to me. But, on the other hand, I believe we all lose sight of what is and is not a penalty.”
Dyche also criticized the addition of only four minutes of additional time at the end as his side sought an equalizer, citing to a fortnight ago’s draw at Sheffield United, in which Oli McBurnie nearly scored a stunning winner in the eighth minute of added time when only six had been awarded.
“Four minutes at the end – two weeks ago they almost couldn’t wait for a goal by adding more minutes to those given, yesterday I believe it was 17 minutes at Villa,” he explained. I’m not sure about some of these things; I know they’ll take some time to iron out, but you definitely need some of these things to work for you rather than against you.”
His worries were compounded by his decision to make tactical changes in the 87th minute, putting on Youssef Chermiti and James Garner for a late rally. He stated that those changes were made in the hope that they would have more time to have an effect.
“By then, you’re searching for a moment, but it does happen,” Dyche added. Four minutes, I was very surprised, and I believe everyone in the stadium was very surprised after what we were told in the new season’s directives, and after what I had seen, and after how other games felt – and other games we had played in, let alone all the numbers I keep seeing across football.
“Then four goes up, which is now almost extraordinary, whereas last season that would have been standard.” We’ve been advised that almost everything would be halted. Everything did not appear to have been stopped and added on today. Anyway, I’m not going to cry over it because Arsenal is a very good team, they played very well today, and we didn’t do enough to win.”
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