Sean Dyche has demanded Everton "give more" in their fight to avoid relegation from the Premier League as his side prepare for a crucial showdown with fellow strugglers Nottingham Forest.
Dyche's team were thrashed 6-0 at Chelsea on Monday and have only one win in their last 15 league games.
A recap of the latest team news in full from today's press conference.@wearfigs 🔵 #EVENFO
— Everton (@Everton) April 19, 2024
With six matches left, Everton are in 16th place, two points above the relegation zone with a game in hand over the three teams directly below them.
Docked points for breaching financial rules twice this season, the Goodison Park club are appealing against the two-point deduction handed to them recently.
Everton were hit with a 10-point punishment that was reduced to six on appeal earlier this season.
Forest are one point behind Everton in 17th and are appealing a four-point deduction of their own, making Sunday's clash at Goodison a vital moment in the survival battle.
"I know I'm in my infancy here of earning my spurs, and currently not deemed to be doing a very good job of it," Dyche told reporters on Friday.
"That's fine, but 15 games ago I was deemed to be the messiah, and everything was OK, and I had found the magic key. Fifteen games later you're not. That's life in football.
"We have to give more, I have to, I understand that. Some of the stuff I can't control has affected us, and that's difficult. I can't control the Premier League, the points (deductions).
"Control on the pitch I've got to do better and we've got to do better, and they can hopefully continue to play their part, as they have been doing."
Immediately after the Chelsea match Dyche, in charge at Everton since January 2023, described it as a "horrible defeat, arguably the worst of my career."
With Everton embroiled in a struggle to preserve the top-flight status they have held since 1954, Dyche said there had been "a lot of home truths, a lot of sharing truths, me included, about what I expect from myself, the staff and the players.
"We are saying 'you can only do it as a group, you can't do it as individuals' and pulling that back together."
The boss is hopeful of having Jarrad Branthwaite, Dominic Calvert-Lewin and Idrissa Gana Gueye available for Sunday's game, but Nathan Patterson has been ruled out for the rest of the season.@wearfigs 🔵 #EVENFO pic.twitter.com/c0M8wSXu5T
— Everton (@Everton) April 19, 2024