£16m Everton player admits Sean Dyche isn’t starting him as often as he wants 

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With the international break now all but over, Everton can finally start re-focusing on their relegation plight.

The Toffees are winless in the Premier League since mid-December, and face another tough task this weekend with a trip to AFC Bournemouth.

However, Sean Dyche will be quietly confident of claiming a result, knowing that he will boast a squad with a near-full clean bill of health.

And yet, the starting side is unlikely to change much.

A manager who very much enjoys sticking with a set group of players, often some stars can therefore be left largely unused. That would, unsurprisingly, get old and frustrating very quickly.

What Nathan Patterson said about Sean Dyche

Speaking to the media in an interview that was aired just yesterday, Nathan Patterson looked ahead to Scotland’s match against Northern Ireland, where they sought to lick their wounds after a damaging 4-0 defeat to the Netherlands just last week.

Having managed 74 minutes in that rout, he was hoping to gain more minutes in yesterday’s clash ahead of returning to his club.

At Everton, the 22-year-old has only managed nine league starts this season, having failed to make an impact on Dyche.

The young man perhaps lacks the solidity that the former Burnley boss craves at times, with his positional awareness having been scrutinised. In the Toffees’ 4-1 home loss to Brighton and Hove Albion in 2023, the right-back was left completely ravaged by Kaoru Mitoma’s speed and intelligence.

Regardless, he still suggested that he would like to be playing more, noting: ‘Yeah you could say so [that this has been one of the most challenging times], obviously I’m not playing as much as I would like to play but sometimes that’s just football. I’m not the type of person that will just give up.

‘I will keep training hard and working hard and make sure I try and give myself the best opportunity.’

Nathan Patterson needs to earn his Everton appearances

Having joined from Rangers under Rafa Benitez’s poisonous tenure, the £16m full-back has struggled to shake his attachment to the much-maligned Spaniard.

After all, his spell at Goodison Park is arguably the catalyst that has kickstarted their relegation woes, as he seemed doomed to take them down before Frank Lampard saved the day.

Then, after the Chelsea legend struggled too, Dyche was finally employed.

It marked the first appointment in years that actually made sense, as a sturdy and unrelenting manager perfect for their current plight.

However, his stubborn ways often leave some players completely frozen out, as Patterson has found out. He is not alone though, with Arnaut Danjuma another who continues to be overlooked despite his obvious quality.

A place in Everton’s starting side is earned though, and when he has featured Patterson has failed to stamp his claim on that spot.

Raw and useful bombarding forwards, with his pace and dynamism a dangerous asset, he sometimes struggles to deal with tricky wingers whose movement can leave him lost.

He has some maturing to do before Dyche will start considering him, with Ben Godfrey, a natural centre-back, having been preferred to him for the bulk of this campaign.