Soccer-Everton doing the hard yards to fight off relegation: Dyche

(Reuters) – There is no guarantee Everton will win their appeal against a 10-point deduction in the Premier League but manager Sean Dyche said one thing the fans can count on is his players showing the right mentality and doing the hard yards in every game.

The sanction for breaching the league’s profitability and sustainability rules dropped Everton into the bottom three but back-to-back wins over Nottingham Forest and Newcastle United have lifted them out of the drop zone.

“We don’t know if it’s going to come back, so therefore we can’t guarantee that,” Dyche told reporters of the docked points after Thursday’s 3-0 home win over Newcastle.

“So what can we guarantee? We can guarantee our mentality. Just keep playing hard.”

Dyche said the players had put their bodies on the line against Newcastle and the fans at Goodison Park had responded to that.

“The underbelly of a strong side is not just the quality. It’s the feel of the group … the hard runs, the hard yards but for each other,” he said.

“There’s a thing about supporters when they can smell it on a team, and I think they can … you’ve got a connected team that care deeply about what they are doing and it shows through their performances. And I think fans really respect that.”

Everton next host 10th-placed Chelsea on Sunday.

(Reporting by Chiranjit Ojha in Bengaluru; Editing by Peter Rutherford)