Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall of Everton during the pre-season friendly match between Bolton Wanderers and Everton (Photo by James Gill - Danehouse/Getty Images)
Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall of Everton during the pre-season friendly match between Bolton Wanderers and Everton (Photo by James Gill - Danehouse/Getty Images)
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Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall believes there is more to come.
It is a big statement from the midfielder given the immediate success of his first season at Everton. Eight goals and four assists made it a landmark campaign for a player who quickly became a talisman for teammates and supporters.
The 27-year-old has little interest in dwelling on the past, though. He said: “I had a good season... and what? Arsenal won the league last year, I don't think they're gonna be thinking about that. I think now, for them, they want to win it again. I think you have to have that mindset.
"You can look back when you're finished and say ‘I did well’, or you can have a summer where you spend a week looking back. But time doesn’t wait for you. You have to go again now - that's my mentality.”
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Dewsbury-Hall wants to move forward and take Everton with him. Already a senior player in the squad - one identified to the ECHO as an emerging dressing room leader by captain James Tarkowski this week - his ambition is to cement his reputation as a top Premier League player.
Frustrated by the end of last season, when a seven game winless streak ended the club’s hopes of Europe, he sees his personal ambition and that of Everton’s to climb the league as entwined.
That David Moyes’ side were even in the conversation for European qualification was partly down to Dewsbury-Hall. After a season laden with honours but in which minutes had been tough to come by, he left Chelsea craving a bigger role and found it on Merseyside.
An early highlight was the 3-2 win at Wolves in which his stunning half-volley added gloss to a game in which Dewsbury-Hall, Jack Grealish and Iliman Ndiaye produced a display of attacking verve.
From Everton’s secluded Black Forest pre-season training base, he told the ECHO: “That was when I thought: ‘Oh, OK, we could have something good here.’ From that point I started to really settle down.
“I had a broken pre-season last year. I played in the Club World Cup, so I didn't really get much rest. I came in at Everton right at the end of pre-season so it took me a game or two to really get used to the lads and up to speed. So it was probably the Wolves game where I was fully settled. And from then on I felt in my groove.”
That goal featured among a collection of landmark moments provided by Dewsbury-Hall. Highlights included his sublime individual goal in a home defeat to Newcastle United and his last-gasp leveller in a big game at Brentford during the run-in.
His standout moment was his curling effort against Manchester United to give Everton a 1-0 win with 10-men at Old Trafford - a goal with his right foot that an emotional Moyes later joked he didn’t believe Dewsbury-Hall had in him.
When the ball spun beyond the fingertips of Senne Lammens it sparked “the best scene I have ever seen in my career”, Dewsbury-Hall said. On the celebrations at full-time, he added: “The first emotion you have is like: ‘Wow, I'm proud of these boys for what they've done.’ It was a memorable, memorable night, definitely one I will remember.”
Given the numbers he racked up, it would be easy to forget Dewsbury-Hall missed more than a month of the campaign with a hamstring injury suffered on his emotional return to Stamford Bridge. The injury disrupted his season as he was building momentum and cost Everton one of their most influential players through the busy Christmas and new year period.
Dewsbury-Hall found that blow tough to take. He said: “The couple of weeks after I got injured was a dark period because I was playing so well. But I had people around me that helped me. I had good lads at the training ground to help me. And I realised, look, it's part of the game.”
When he returned, the return to form that followed gave him renewed confidence and allows him to reflect on what he believes was a positive introduction to his time at Everton.
He sees that success as the starting point, not the high-point, however, telling the ECHO he would rate his season as 7.5/10.
He added: “Trust me, there is more I can do. There is a lot. I still don’t think I was playing near my best last season. I know what I can produce and that is why I am sitting down with my coaches everyday and doing sessions behind closed doors - to work out what else I can do to be really effective.”
The message is clear: Dewsbury-Hall believes there is far more to come and he is intent on unlocking it, working through extra sessions after training this summer to prepare himself for the greater responsibility he is ready for.
Reflecting on his first year as an Everton player - he marked his 12 month anniversary with a post on Instagram on Thursday - Dewsbury-Hall chose to set his achievements against his hopes to now better them.
He said: “I'd be lying if I didn't say it wasn't a positive season. Coming off the back of a year where I probably didn't play as much I needed to have a season like that, and I knew I would, I knew I could, but it would need to be in the right environment to do it.
“Luckily, Everton fitted that pretty perfectly. But then it was down to me to try and perform and down to me to try and be effective and help the team.
“I thought, for large parts of the season, I did that, obviously there were points where I could have maybe done a bit more. But. yeah, it was career high goals in the Premier League for me, goal contributions too. Everything was there and, people forget, I missed nearly a quarter of the season through injury.
“I feel like if I played the whole season, it could have been even better, but that's football. It was a really good season for me. It was a season which probably put me back in the conversation of being a top player, a top midfielder in the Premier League, which is what I want to be. And it brings us to this point now and it's about building on that. It's all good having one good season, but the top players go again and again and again and again. And that's what I need to do.
“That's done now for me. Last season was nice. I reflected on it a little bit in the summer. But, as far as I'm concerned, it's finished and it's a clean slate now going into this season.”
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