He is not the first player to have benefited from a managerial change and he will not be the last. Or to rephrase that, Dyche was the manager when Everton signed the Ireland defender. And, with Cobh Ramblers becoming the third League of Ireland outfit to come under a multi-club ownership model , it is something which needs to be watched closer to home.
He played a major part in Lyon recovering from a disastrous start to last season which had them bottom of Ligue 1 in December to finish sixth and qualify for Europe.
The Real Madrid-bound striker did not score. He had only joined Lyon on a permanent basis in June after a successful spell on loan from Nottingham Forest. The Toffees also tried to sign Ernest Nuamah — who had also only joined Lyon in June — on transfer deadline day but the move collapsed.
But the Merseyside outfit did loan out Nigerian teenager Francis Gomez to Lyon on the same day as they signed him from Sporting Supreme. This sudden flurry of activity was, apparently, a coincidence — or rather three coincidences and nearly a fourth. That never materialised. His competitive debut came in their fourth Premier League game.
And players can undoubtedly suffer when seen as not having been the choice of a particular manager. That dynamic has long existed when it is a chairman or sporting director calling the shots on transfers. Some moves have been more successful than others but pick 14 deals any club has done and that would likely be the case.
