David Sneyd

SEAMUS COLEMAN HAS played for nine permanent and two caretaker managers during his 15 years at Everton.

The last two seasons have required dramatic late escapes to avoid relegation from the Premier League.

A strained relationship between the club’s board and fans has fractured to a point of no return.

The toxicity levels continue to rise.

Everton have lost their first two games of this season and face another campaign of immense struggle.

Coleman, who signed a one-year contract extension in the summer, will have to watch from the sideline for another six to eight weeks before he’s likely to return from a knee injury.

He has urged his teammates to realise they are in a relegation battle now, insisting they must come together to understand their reality.

And yet, Coleman loves it.

It’s why he wants to become a manager.

“I realise how tough it can actually be, but see when you’ve been at a club for 15 years as well, even though you’re not the manager, when you’re at the club 15 years, you’re the captain and you live in the city, that can be tough too. That comes with the job that we’re in, the pressure. Secretly we all love that pressure as well,” he said.

The captain of his club and country no longer wishes to simply retreat to Donegal for a quiet life when his days on the Premier League frontline are over.

“When you move away from home at a young age you miss out so many years at home,” Coleman said, speaking at the launch of SPAR’s Better Choices Back to School campaign. “From when I moved over here until the last few years [the thinking] was ‘I’ll go home, move back to Ireland and all the rest’. And that still might happen.

“But I’ve got three kids that are well settled, I can get home as much as I want. The more I’ve been involved in football and been around so many different managers, I love it. I love football. I idolise it. I’ve no God given right just because you’ve played to be a manager but it’s something I’d work really hard at and start off at the right rung of the ladder to be successful.

“It’s something I would like to have a go at it in the future. It’s most certainly not an easy job from what I can see.”

He has backed the work of Ireland manager Stephen Kenny, although the captain will not be available for next month’s Euro 2024 qualifiers with France and Netherlands.

“He doesn’t take any shortcuts in what he does. He only lives and breathes it and he does everything that he can to make sure we get the result midweek or at the weekend.

“Unfortunately some of the results haven’t gone the right way but anyone who knows me, I put responsibility on players to perform and there’s no way we go into games unprepared with no understanding of what we’re doing because the work they do behind the scenes is very thorough.

“He’s a man who is desperate to do well for Ireland and I hope that will be the case because he cares so much.”

On a day-to-day basis it is Sean Dyche that Coleman now works under.

“There’s no getting away from it, the first two results weren’t good. The second performance against Aston Villa wasn’t good enough, the first one against Fulham we had enough chances to win without a shadow of a doubt.

Seamus Coleman launched SPAR’s Better Choices Back to School campaign. Naoise Culhane Naoise Culhane

“We’ve got to put right the performance against Aston Villa, that was not good at all and there is no getting away from that. As a club, as a whole, we can all be negative or whatever about the situation but it’s not going to get us anywhere and I don’t want to wait until March time again for us to all come together and have a go together.

“We need to make sure the lads there know this can’t go on and we have to do our best to make sure that’s the case.

“I think that is key,” Coleman continued. “I’ve learned that a lot myself in the last couple of years. Without naming names of teams that could be involved in relegation battles that we were in the last couple of years.

“You realise how important it is when you play those teams home and away. It’s such a big, big game, and it might be a massive game in November, not just in April time with four games to go that you’re all getting up for it.

“It’s about putting importance on all the games, which we do, of course we do, but we have to pick up points. I have to emphasise how tough this league is and you’ve got no God given right to stay in the league. I’ve said that all the time, you’ve got to earn it. At the same time, we’re two games in, the window is not closed. it’s not panic buttons yet but there has to be a massive awareness that we can’t let this keep going.”

That awareness extends to matters off the pitch, which Coleman stressed has been key to his own understanding of what Everton means to the people of Merseyside.

“I live in the city and I know what it means to the fans. Premier League players could do with walking around the city of where their club is now and again and getting a feel of the club that you play for.

“I was out walking with the kids or whatever the case may be towards the end of last season and you would have all sorts of people coming up to you. They’re not giving you a hard time whatsoever, but you could genuinely see the love, passion, and emotion they have for their football club, and the desperation at times.

“They live it, it’s their life. You have to have an understanding of that. If you want to play for a football club, you’ve got to understand what the football club means to the people. Ultimately, they’re the most important. They spend their money, go and follow it from young. I think a lot of clubs and players could do with walking around the city of where their club is sometimes.

“Now, we as ‘Premier League footballers’ can isolate ourselves from reality at times. It’s important for me and I learned a lot from meeting people about what it means to the people.”