For his weekend Royal Blue column our Everton FC correspondent Joe Thomas focus on the significance of one summer signing's return to the team and to the dressing room
LIVERPOOL, ENGLAND - DECEMBER 6: Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall of Everton celebrates scoring a goal to make the score 1-0
during the Premier League match between Everton and Nottingham Forest at Hill Dickinson Stadium on December 6, 2025 in Liverpool, England. (Photo by Richard Martin-Roberts - CameraSport via Getty Images)
Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall celebrates opening the scoring in the 3-0 home win over Nottingham Forest - his last goal for Everton before he was struck down by an untimely injury(Image: Richard Martin-Roberts - CameraSport via Getty Images)
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The changes David Moyes made at half-time on Monday were important for a host of reasons.
The return to the pitch of Jarrad Branthwaite and Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall galvanised the team and provided an influx of quality that tipped the balance of the game in favour of Everton.
Their appearances, with Carlos Alcaraz returning to the bench and Seamus Coleman featuring on it for a second consecutive week, and with Iliman Ndiaye and Idrissa Gueye back from their heroics with Senegal, also showcased the extraordinary amount of talent Moyes has been without through Christmas and most of January - talent that, with the exception of the unfortunate Jack Grealish - he can now call upon with increasing confidence at Brighton & Hove Albion today (Saturday).
There was another strand of significance too - that being the influence of Dewsbury-Hall and the understanding he brings on and off-the-pitch. Put simply: He gets it, he gets Everton.
That thought struck me when I heard his comments after the match.
Through three months of struggle at home the question has repeatedly turned to what can be done to turn things around on the Liverpool waterfront.
Dewsbury-Hall put forth the most compelling case I’ve heard, putting responsibility onto him and his team-mates: “It doesn't take a lot for it to become loud and for fans to get off their feet. It might only take one tackle, one press. And I think us lads just need to remember that in the back of our head.
“We don't need to be playing silky football or completely dominating teams, it's being in people's faces, getting aggressive, getting the crowd up and then playing football and showing what we're about. So, yes, I think if we start doing that more in the next couple of home games, we're going to pick up better results.”
There is a lot to like in those words but chief among them, for me, is the sense the player has lived and breathed the same frustrations as 50,000 home supporters during his absence.
He has spent time thinking about it, too.
It offers an insight into the mind of a player who placed a high value on Everton’s interest in him in the summer.
The approach came with Dewsbury-Hall a Europa Conference League and World Club Cup winner and with the Blues coming off the back of successive seasons fighting relegation.
Yet Everton had an appeal to Dewsbury-Hall because of the size of the club and the stature that he was aware it had.
He is a student of the game, and probably as big a ‘fan’ of football I think I have come across from the growing list of players I have sat down with.
I remember speaking to him last year at Finch Farm, just before he hit the sparkling run of form that ended so cruelly on his return to Chelsea.
We spoke for around 40 minutes and it was hard not to be stirred by the passion of his desire to do well at Everton and for Everton.
He said the right things and he said them, I believed, for the right reasons.
Having people like that at the heart of this club can only be a good thing and the return of his influence to the dressing room and out on the pitch is most welcome.