Neal Maupay has been taking shots at parent club Everton while away on loan at Olympique Marseille and Toffees manager Sean Dyche has addressed the striker’s comments
Neal Maupay has been taking shots at parent club Everton while away on loan at Olympique Marseille and Toffees manager Sean Dyche has addressed the striker’s comments Neal Maupay has been taking shots at parent club Everton while away on loan at Olympique Marseille and Toffees manager Sean Dyche has addressed the striker’s comments
Everton manager Sean Dyche laughed off Neal Maupay’s dig at the Merseyside club after the recent defeat to Nottingham Forest.
Maupay, a big-money arrival from Brighton in 2022, struggled in his first season and has been loaned out twice. He spent the last campaign at Brentford, scoring six times in the Premier League, and is now back in France with Marseille.
He has already bettered the return of one league goal in his only full season at Goodison Park. However, it is his comments off the pitch which have angered some fans of his parent club.
“Whenever I’m having a bad day I just check the Everton score and smile,” Maupay said after Everton’s most recent defeat at home to Nottingham Forest. He aimed a second dig after being called out by boxer and Everton fan Tony Bellew, while some other supporters have fired back at the Frenchman.
While Maupay is still technically on Everton’s books, his wages are being covered by Marseille. He is also due to join the Ligue 1 club permanently at the end of the season, and Dyche made it clear his own focus is elsewhere.
“I think it is fair to say there is a bigger picture to Everton Football Club that I am focusing on and I don’t think I need to be too worried about his comments,” the former Burnley boss said. “I don’t think we’ll be worried about that,” he added when asked about the possibility of disciplinary action for the striker.
Dyche was speaking against the backdrop of struggles on the pitch and hope for optimism off it. The Friedkin Group recently completed a takeover, but the main priority is preserving the club’s Premier League status with the gap to the bottom three reduced to just two points during the last gameweek.
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After Saturday’s trip to Bournemouth, Everton won’t have another Premier League match until January 15. That gives them time to add to their squad, though the new owners have indicated there won’t be fortunes to spend.
“There are (financial) parameters, the owners have made that clear,” Dyche added. “The one thing it’s unlikely to be is hundreds of millions of pounds, whether you have got it or not – and our owners are pretty wealthy.
“Forgetting about the numbers, I’ve been doing this a long time in the Premier League and notoriously January is very tough. I’m not saying no, but it’s tough and you’ve seen it down the years. Usually if big deals are done they pay a lot of money for those deals to happen.”
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