Inside Sean Dyche’s Everton team as ‘harsh and truthful’ debates revealed

Everton first team coach Steve Stone has lifted the lid on the ‘trust’ between manager Sean Dyche, assistant Ian Woan and himself that enables the trio to be brutally honest with each other in order to make the best decisions for the team.

Along with head of performance Mark Howard, Stone and Woan followed Dyche to Goodison Park at the end of January having previously worked under him for almost a decade at Burnley. The Everton management trio’s friendship goes back even further than that though as their paths first crossed as youngsters at Brian Clough’s Nottingham Forest and Stone, who went on to make 229 appearances for the East Midlands side, scoring 27 goals, believes those long-standing ties also help to define their working relationship.

He told the ECHO: “We’ve obviously been friends for a lot of years. We’ve lived together when I was an apprentice with the gaffer to start with, I met him when I was 14 years of age.

“What we have with each other is trust and trust in what we say. The gaffer obviously has the final say in everything we do but we’re very, very, very different characters when you meet us.

“We’re different characters in how we were as players and how we are as characters now. So we offer something different in terms of how we see the game.

“Woany will come out with something completely different in terms of team shape and what he expects from the team and I might completely disagree and go with something different. We’d then put it forward to the manager but say why we’re doing it – it’s not just a case of ‘I think this’ – there has to be a reason with information over why we think about things.

“The manager will then digest it and then he will make the final decision on that. I think what we can be with each other is really, really honest and truthful.

“None of us is hurt by what anybody else says to each other because at times as professionals within the game we have to be really robust with one another in terms of how we think and what we think because it’s for the good of the team, not for our egos. It’s not about how we feel on a Saturday, it’s about how do the players feel on a Saturday.