What Sean Dyche didn't do was bewildering but blaming Everton boss alone is wrong

Everton somehow managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory against Bournemouth on Saturday afternoon. The Blues led 2-0 heading into the final three minutes of normal time thanks to goals from Michael Keane and Dominic Calvert-Lewin.

However, Sean Dyche's side self-destructed spectacularly to leave all those inside Goodison Park shell-shocked by what they were witnessing. Antoine Semenyo first reduced the arrears before Lewis Cook levelled up the game two minutes into stoppage time.

Then, four minutes after Cook’s equaliser, Luis Sinisterra headed home at the back post to send the visitors wild.

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And with Saturday’s game still at the forefront of their minds, our Everton jury have returned to have their say on what happened.

Alex McMonnies - Pinning all of the blame on the manager is incredibly harsh

I think we may very well have witnessed peak Everton on Saturday afternoon.

However, the fact that everyone in the ground seemed to receive that same sinking feeling as soon as Bournemouth pulled one back shows that this was far from a new experience for many. Let's not forget that less than 10 years ago, the Cherries launched a similarly improbable comeback at the Vitality Stadium after the Toffees had comfortably led most of the game by a 2-0 scoreline.

Naturally, people will point the finger of blame at Sean Dyche, and there is certainly a case to be made that he did not manage the game amazingly well. Iliman Ndiaye was indisputably the best player on the pitch, terrorising the Bournemouth defenders, holding onto the ball in crucial moments, and also frequently winning the ball back for his team, and with there being no match for another two weeks, preserving the Senegalese international's fitness surely wasn't that much of a priority.

Nevertheless, pinning all of the blame on the manager is incredibly harsh, in my opinion. Hardly anyone was criticising the substitution at the time it was made, and no-one can reasonably argue that this sort of capitulation has been a regular occurrence throughout his tenure. Since Dyche was appointed in January 2023, this was only the third match in which the Blues took the lead in a home match and went on to lose, and one of those matches was against Manchester City.

I personally feel that the players are getting off far too lightly here and that regardless of which substitutions were made, a group of top-level professional footballers should be able to hold onto a two-goal lead with less than 10 minutes of the match to play. The state of panic that the defenders entered into as soon as Antoine Semenyo scored what should have just been a mere consolation was deeply concerning to witness.

One can only wonder what the response to that goal would have been like had the composed Jarrad Branthwaite been on the pitch instead of Michael Keane, who thrives when confident but always seems to shrink when the going gets tough. Thankfully, the 22-year-old remains on Everton's books for at least one more season, and as soon as he is ready to play again, I think we will see a return to the mean defence that served us so well last campaign.

Saturday was undoubtedly a complete disaster and a truly awful resolution to what should have been the game that kick-started Everton's season. The sheer dominance for 87 minutes has understandably been almost completely eradicated from the memory, but it was shaping up to be the most complete performance we have seen from an Everton side since Dyche came in, and for my money, regardless of the outcome, that's a promising sign.

The majority of the fanbase are clearly fed up with Dyche and probably believe his time as manager is almost up, but he has dusted himself and his team down after more catastrophic results than this in his time at Goodison Park, and he will do so once again. Maybe not after a visit to foreboding Villa Park, but within a few weeks, Everton will be at the right end of the form table once again, and if the majority of Saturday's performance is anything to go by, there will be more bright days than dark ones throughout this campaign.

Paul McParlan - Nine minutes of madness

You can always rely on Everton to find new ways of torturing their fans.

For 87 minutes, they produced one of their best displays seen under Sean Dyche, playing attractive football and creating a hatful of chances. But somehow, to the consternation of supporters, they contrived to throw away a two-goal lead, turning a deserved victory into a calamitous 3-2 defeat.

With three minutes remaining, Paddy Power had probably begun paying out punters who had backed the Blues to win. Such was our dominance of the match, in which we could easily have been four goals up. Everton that!

Substitutions are an important part of the modern game, especially when there is often over five minutes of additional time to play. For some reason, Sean Dyche has always seemed reluctant to use his full complement. While the Bournemouth boss, Andoni Iraola, made five substitutions that altered the outcome of the match, the two changes made by Dyche appeared to weaken Everton.

Our best performer, Iliman Ndiaye, was replaced by Abdoulaye Doucoure on 83 minutes, while a revitalised Dominic Calvert-Lewin made way for Beto five minutes later. And at a time when Everton needed to keep control of the ball, their introduction simply allowed Bournemouth more control and space to launch their counterattacks.

His failure to bring on fresh legs in the final minutes to deal with the threat posed by the visitors was bewildering. Seamus Coleman and Tim Iroegbunam were clearly running on empty and could not deal with the pace of the opposition onslaught after Bournemouth scored their first goal.

Surely, Jake O’Brien could have been brought on to help deal with the aerial threat being posed by the visitors. The introduction of James Garner could have helped our midfield. The ability to change the course of a game is an essential requirement of any football coach. On this occasion, the inertia of Sean Dyche cost Everton dearly.

Nevertheless, while Sean Dyche’s decisions, or lack of them, are rightly held to account by supporters, surely the players also have some questions to answer after their capitulation. There was enough experience in that team to see the game out comfortably.

Why didn’t we try to keep possession and wind down the clock rather than inexplicably decide to go forward in search of a third goal? Why did Vitalii Mykolenko surge ahead on an overlap, leaving his left flank hopelessly exposed for Bournemouth's winning goal? The defence had three experienced players with hundreds of league games under their belt who failed to deal with the crosses into our area. The players have to accept some responsibility here.

Did Sean Dyche make some tactical miscalculations on Saturday? Yes. Were those mistakes solely responsible for throwing away a 2-0 lead? I am not sure. While Sean deserves criticism, at key moments in games, fans also expect their senior players to deliver, and I am not totally sure that on this occasion, they all did.