Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall wants big changes from Everton's players for the final month of the season following the 2-1 defeat at West Ham United
Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall has told his Everton team-mates that they need to improve their mentality after conceding two “awful” goals in their 2-1 defeat to West Ham United at London Stadium.
Dewsbury-Hall’s 88th-minute strike had cancelled out Tomas Soucek’s 51st minute opener but the Hammers restored their lead through substitute Callum Wilson’s 92nd-minute winner.
And the 27-year-old, who has now extended his highest-ever Premier League scoring season to eight goals, said: “It’s very tough, it’s very frustrating. I didn’t think we were probably good enough anyway on the day, but it was a nervy atmosphere from the start, and we didn’t capitalise on that.
“The two goals are awful to concede, so there’s no excuse and accountability needs to be taken. We’re men, we need to do that.
“We’ve put ourselves in a position to at least get a point from the game, to be the team to go on and take the three points. But a lapse of judgement two minutes later has killed us, and that’s not enough if you want to do something this year.”
Dewsbury-Hall added: “I’m very surprised. It’s not been us this year, pretty much.
“For large parts of the season, we’ve been really resolute and defensively strong. For one reason or another, the last two games, the four goals we’ve conceded have just been so bad.
“Teams aren’t having to do an awful lot to score. The set-piece ones especially, they’re so big in the game these days, it’s giving teams an edge on us going into the games.
“We’ve worked on it, but we’ve obviously not worked on it enough because teams are looking at us like we’ve got a weak link on set-pieces at the moment. It’s something we need to look at next week and work harder on because they’re killing us at the moment.
“Of course it’s been mentioned in the dressing room. Everyone should know that, everyone needs to take accountability and everyone has got a job.
“If they score from a set-piece then somebody is not doing their job. That’s as a collective.
“Even if it’s not you, you need to get everyone together and make sure they’re doing their job. At the moment, we’re not doing that and we need to change it quick.
“Like I said, they’re so important in the game these days and two set-pieces in the last two games have cost us points.”
Dewsbury-Hall, who fired into the net from captain James Tarkowski’s knockdown, reckons his own strike should have been the cue for Everton to go on and win the match.
The midfielder said: “We grew into the game and we got a really important goal. We should be the team then to go into the ascendency and put them on the back foot because they’re the ones who are nervous and need to win.
“It’s a poor goal to concede and we’ve let them off the hook. We should be going on to win that game, even after not playing well for spells, but that’s football, these things happen and we need to learn from it.”
Dewsbury-Hall had a penalty given against him for handball in Everton’s 2-0 win over Brighton & Hove Albion in their first competitive game at Hill Dickinson Stadium after Tarkowski had been punished in similar fashion in the previous match.
So he was staggered that the Blues were not given the opportunity to level proceedings shortly before his equaliser when West Ham midfielder Matheus Fernandes stretched out an arm to handle the ball when marking Thierno Barry in his own area.
Dewsbury-Hall said: “I haven’t seen it back, but in the moment, it looks like he’s handled the ball. I don’t understand why that’s not been given.
“It’s been said that it was an accidental handball, but we’ve had penalties given against us from blocks this season, where it’s hit arms. I don’t get what the difference is.
“He’s in the box, he’s hit it with his hand and whether it’s accidental or not, it’s handball. It’s a big moment in the game because if we get a penalty, it changes the game, but I just feel we’re not getting any of those decisions at the moment.”
Dewsbury-Hall has refused to give up on Everton’s hopes for European qualification but he admits they need to be stronger in their approach.
He said: “It’s so tight, but it’s just frustrating because we’ve had opportunities in the last couple of weeks to put ourselves in a fantastic position, yet now we’re probably the ones who are chasing. It doesn’t mean it’s done and we’ll never ever think that, and we’ve got four massive games to go.
“But, if we want to really achieve something, we need to improve the mentality and go into games and win games by making it tough for teams to score goals because that’s what we’ve been for the majority of the season. At the business end, it needs to be even more important.”