Sean Dyche hailed Everton’s ‘fighting spirit’ after they secured Premier League survival on Sunday with a hard-fought 1-0 win over Bournemouth at a nervous Goodison Park.
Abdoulaye Doucoure scored the most important goal of his career and possibly Everton’s history to save the side from relegation with a narrow win over the visiting Cherries.
His powerful 20-yard strike, a bolt from the blue, was enough to extend the club’s top-flight stay to a 70th successive season but for long periods that proud record appeared in doubt.
But Doucoure’s 10th goal for the club capped a remarkable turnaround in four months for the Mali international who was training on his own in January after a fall-out with former manager Frank Lampard.
Five days after having his contract extended by 12 months – and with his side just over half-an-hour from heading into the Championship – he delivered when it mattered most and in a way the club can never adequately repay him for.
But it still required a clearance from Conor Coady under his own crossbar and a good save deep into 10 minutes of added time from Jordan Pickford to keep them safe.
Everton manager Dyche told Sky Sports: “Obviously it means a lot. To me, I took over what they called a broken club. It’s not broken. There are certainly cracks but it’s not broken. We’ve shown that fighting spirit we needed.
“But I’ve told the players they shouldn’t be in this state and we’ve got to learn. Next season is going to be a big season. It’s a magic day but at the end of the day we shouldn’t be in this shape.
“We needed belief in the group and I think we’ve done that well. As a staff we’ve maintained that, we’ve kept them believing. They’ve seen people dropping, we’ve got no full-backs, no forwards, but we’ve kept going.
“‘Doucs’ has been a shining light in that and he scores a cracking goal. He might have mis-hit it. But we have to learn from this experience. You’re only a big club if you give big club performances and you do big club things.
“This is a big club but we’ve got to get it back to being there off the pitch and not just on the pitch.”
Doucoure said: “This was my most important (goal) in my career. We know how important Everton is. We knew if we scored a goal we were going to win the game today. It was a good feeling at the end to win the game.
“Everyone looks at me in training and says I don’t score in training, I save them for the games. It was a good goal. I didn’t watch it back yet but I’m so happy it went in and gave us the three points we needed.
“We know Everton have never been relegated (in the Premier League era) and you don’t want to be part of that. I was very happy to be on the pitch this afternoon to help the club stay in the Premier League.
“Obviously we know there is a lot of work to be done. We can’t come back to this position every year.”
England goalkeeper Pickford said: “It’s been a grind again. We spoke earlier about mentality. I think we showed that in the first half with our attitude, our dedication and the mentality. We just needed to add that quality, that extra 10 per cent and Doucs found that strike, I don’t know where from.
“To get us over the line, it’s massive for the club for us as players, for the club, the fans. We’ve worked our nuts off all week and every week. We’ve given our all. Sometimes it doesn’t pay off but if you put in the work you know you can be proud no matter what.
“It’s come down the line in the last couple of years but we keep going.”
And Coady told Sky Sports: “It’s relief. It’s become a bit of thing now, last season and this season. We need to improve, we need to reset but it’s relief. It’s been the hardest season of my life, the hardest of my career and there’s a lot of relief.
“We weren’t really aware (of Leicester). We heard the crowd but we had a plan, we focused on ourselves. We’ve worked so hard to put it in our hands and we’ve done that, it’s important we’ve done that and I thought we played really well considering the circumstances.
“There was loads of pressure and it’s overwhelming relief. It’s something you don’t want to be part of, this giant of a football club going down, we’ve reiterated that all season. This club has to rise now.”
