Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall on Everton's Transfer Deadline Day
Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall calls transfer deadline day “exciting for everyone”. At Everton this year, it felt like a punchline.
What began with optimism dissolved into confusion, then outright exasperation. Supporters stared at their screens wondering what on earth The Friedkin Group were playing at. Dewsbury-Hall rode the same emotional rollercoaster, but for very different reasons.
David Moyes ended the window with fewer players than he started with, one recognised striker and no natural cover at either full-back. The chaos peaked when US international Folarin Balogun walked away from a £40m move after a deal sheet had already gone in. From the outside, it looked like a club tying its own shoelaces together.
Inside Finch Farm, the mood is not what you’d expect.
“Really good to be honest,” Dewsbury-Hall insists. “Definitely not the same mood as what I’ve seen on the outside. There’s a good mentality this year of: ‘We’ll show everyone.’” Everton’s early performances back him up.
He has watched the fallout, the social media fury, the fatalism about another season of struggle. He didn’t like what he saw.
“I’ve seen all of the reactions, all of the meltdowns, and in all honesty it annoyed me a bit,” he says, choosing his words but not softening them. “I get where people are coming from; everyone wants to sign everyone and have the perfect squad. But there are still 19 lads in this building who are going to hopefully take this club to good things this year. That was getting disregarded.
“I saw people saying: ‘We’ll be lucky to stay up this year.’ What message is that sending to the lads who are already here? I’m not blaming anyone. We get it. It didn’t work. But let’s all be positive – right, it’s done, bang, let’s go – and that’s what we’ve been trying to say in the dressing room. Of course we would have wanted to sign a couple more, but we’re happy with what we’ve got and it’s given us more impetus now to move on.”
Moyes has already voiced his concern about the signal such a window sends to a group he is trying to drag forward. Does it chip away at belief? Dewsbury-Hall doesn’t buy that.
“Not really, no,” he says. “I know we’ve got a smaller squad but we’ve got some really good players. Our starting XI is top, a European starting XI.
“I get it, you need a whole squad, but we’ve got 17, 18 players at a really, really good level. I don’t think a couple of years ago it was at that level. Actually I know it wasn’t. Things can be out of your hands in football and that’s what happened for us. But we quickly realised: ‘Hang on a minute, look around the dressing room – top player, top player, top player.’ If we’re doing the right things we can still be successful.”
He will be central to any success. Since his £28m move from Chelsea last summer, Dewsbury-Hall has grown into the role Everton imagined for him when they prised him away from Stamford Bridge. Regular minutes, responsibility, influence – everything he felt was slipping away in west London.
“I’m in the prime years of my career,” he says. “I couldn’t afford to spend more years stagnating.”
That sense of urgency has carried into his status behind the scenes. When Séamus Coleman left in the summer, he left more than an empty peg. Everton responded by creating a leadership group to replace the presence of their long-serving captain. Dewsbury-Hall, after just one season, is in it.
“Because Séamus has left such a big hole we need a group of experienced lads to crack on together and keep the standards high and to drive things,” he explains. “It’s just the more experienced lads – [Jordan] Pickford, Tarky [James Tarkowski, the new club captain], Jimmy [James] Garner, myself. The ones that have been playing in the Premier League for years or feel like they are settled at the club.
“It’s nice [to be voted in after just one season] but it’s definitely an impact I wanted to have. I’m really pleased that the lads look at me as someone that can be important for the dressing room.”
That dressing room has already lived through one flashpoint this season: the near-sale of Harrison Armstrong. The 19-year-old midfielder seemed set for Nottingham Forest before Everton’s owners were jolted into a U-turn by the furious reaction of travelling fans at Bournemouth.
“They definitely made their feelings known and obviously it worked,” Dewsbury-Hall says. “Big credit to them for that, they were amazing that day. And I know for a fact it made Harrison feel very good and it helped him. He is a very confident lad and well respected in the dressing room for such a young age.”
Dewsbury-Hall has taken the teenager under his wing, even if the mentoring comes with a few jabs.
“If there is anything I can help him with then I will. Shooting’s definitely one because his shooting is sometimes not the best, and I’ve told him that many times. But he’s got pretty much everything else. He always likes to say he’s got a better strike than me so I just tell him to look at the [Crystal] Palace goal or the Wolves goal last season. We have good banter.”
Behind the humour sits a player with very clear ideas about where he wants to go. This season’s checklist is ambitious: European qualification with a lean squad, a serious run in the cups, visible improvement in every area of his game and, at last, an England cap.
His form has not gone unnoticed by Thomas Tuchel, who names his next squad on Friday. Dewsbury-Hall knows he is on the radar.
“I know I’m the closest I have ever been now,” he says. “You get a message two weeks before the squad is announced. I got one for the long list for the World Cup and I’ve had one for these next games. It’s nice. It means you are doing OK.
“It’s a long, long message. It tells you that it’s a legal requirement for us [the Football Association] to tell you in advance that you are in contention and to be available for these dates. It’s a good feeling because you think: ‘OK, I am close,’ but you know you have to keep pushing it to the last minute. It’s up to me. It’s got to be me that forces his hand to choose me. It’s not going to be given to me.”
Nothing, he knows, will be given to Everton either. Not with this squad size, not with the noise around the ownership, not with the doubts still swirling outside the gates.
Inside, the message is blunt: it’s done, bang, let’s go. Now the question is whether Dewsbury-Hall and this trimmed-down group can turn defiance into a season that changes the conversation around the club.
