Sean Dyche may become the most important manager in Everton history

And so it came to pass that logic trumped romance and Sean Dyche, not Marcelo Bielsa, was today confirmed as the man entrusted with keeping Everton in the Premier League.

Dyche took training for the first time on Monday and is joined on the coaching staff by trusted assistants Ian Woan and Steve Stone, who were part of his coaching team at Burnley.

We talk plenty about "the perfect fit" in football, some managers being stylistically suited to certain clubs.

The more aspirational Everton fans still hoping that Farhad Moshiri will somehow entice Diego Simeone, or even go back to Bielsa, might disagree, but there is something about Dyche standing on the touchline at Goodison Park which seems entirely correct given the club’s current plight.

We will never know if the Bielsa to Everton experiment would have proven to be a stroke of genius or madness. It is quite conceivable it would have been both bonkers and brilliant.

Imposing a high energy, possession-based game on such a limited squad within such a short space of time, to keep Everton up, seemed well nigh impossible. The only effective man-to-man marking at Goodison Park this season has been by the stewards ordered to shadow attending directors.

Given the Everton owner's desperate attempts to recruit Bielsa – and how vastly different his football vision – if Dyche succeeds there will be no escaping the accusation that Moshiri has stumbled into the correct decision. Alternatively,  Dyche will suffer as much as his predecessors amid budget restraints and confused definitions of what Everton’s "School of Science" tradition actually entails.

The last time Moshiri went down the pragmatism route was after he sacked Ronald Koeman in 2017 and it worked: Sam Allardyce comfortably escaping relegation to finish 8th.

Allardyce was an unpalatable long-term solution for the supporters because of his divisive personality, although misgivings about his direct style of football style are full of contradiction, given how many Goodison punters love a long ball to a bullying number No 9.

There are inescapable echoes in Moshiri turning to Dyche now, although those who followed his career closely at Burnley will rail against the new manager being stripped to one dimension, even if his side played more long passes than other Premier League sides.

Regardless of the two-and-a-half-year contract referenced in the statement announcing his appointment, Dyche arrives battling the perception that he is a temporary fire-fighter who the fans (and probably Moshiri) will want replaced at the end of the season, especially if Bielsa is more willing to take over in the summer. The fact Moshiri was not quoted welcoming Dyche in the club announcement was odd indeed.

For Everton and Moshiri’s sake, one must hope Dyche proves wrong his frequent critics. He continuously retained Premier League status at Burnely against the odds and finished as high as seventh in 2018, proving as adept as any coach in England at making a team punch above its weight.

Like Allardyce, he will arrive with the sole remit of keeping Everton up. But his task will be tougher than it was when Koeman was sacked.

The unpalatable truth is that while the first priority is keeping Everton in the Premier League, the task might rapidly evolve to getting the club out of the Championship at the first attempt.

There is a school of thought, uttered in whispers around Goodison, that Everton might actually benefit from a year in the lower division. The catastrophic financial implications undermine the theory – and it is doubtful that Dyche would be retained if the nightmare unfolds – but if the worst happened it would hasten a clear-out of those high earners who would consider it beneath them to be outside of the Premier League. With smart recruitment, relegation would allow the club to start afresh.

With a blank canvas, clear vision, and permission to scout and develop fresh talent, an Everton manager could get the time his predecessors were denied. Dyche has experience in navigating those choppy Championship waters so might make sense in the long-term as much as the here and now.

To end Everton’s vicious cycle, the new manager must ready himself for the Premier League salvage operation, but earning enough trust do that reconstruction work is as challenging as erecting that £500 million stadium.

That means Dyche is not only the most important appointment of the Moshiri era. With the club in 19th and in more jeopardy now than any previous relegation battles, he is one of the most consequential in the club’s history.