The Everton Forum • Re: Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall
Copied from Apple news so forgive the formatting
Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall: Tarky hasn’t shut up about derby goal
The Everton midfielder and self-professed ‘scholar of football’ is relishing the chance to make history in the first Merseyside derby at Hill Dickinson Stadium
April 17 2026, The Times
Some 432 days will have passed and still the memories remain as vivid as ever.
James Tarkowski’s 98th-minute thunderous volley to rescue a point for Everton against Liverpool and the explosion of noise that reverberated around the stands at Goodison Park in the last derby at the famous old ground.
The clash between Abdoulaye Doucouré and Curtis Jones, which led to them being shown red cards at full-time, as a pulsating 2-2 draw descended into carnage.
The visiting head coach Arne Slot, in the midst of an uncharacteristic meltdown, accusing the referee Michael Oliver of “f***ing giving them everything” and potentially costing him a Premier League crown. He was shown a red card, too, along with his assistant, Sipke Hulshoff.
Of course, much has changed since Everton last had their neighbours over — not least the venue. The first Merseyside derby at the Hill Dickinson Stadium has a hard act to follow.
“Tarky’s not shut up about it,” Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall says, as he watches a rerun of the moment that sparked all that chaos back in February 2025. “It is one of the most iconic goals of recent history at Everton. I’ve not seen him do it much since!
“If you do something in a big game like this, it will give you a little gold star next to your name, won’t it? That’s enough motivation for me.”
A slice of history awaits the victors on Sunday but there is more at stake for both city rivals, which reflects their contrasting fortunes. Slot’s fears regarding the title last season proved unfounded, yet this encounter feels like an ordeal for a team who have been bundled out of the FA Cup and Champions League in the past fortnight, and must secure a top-five finish to return to Europe’s elite and salvage a sliver of consolation from a torturous campaign.
Everton, in contrast, can sense an opportunity to accelerate the transformation that is taking place under their manager David Moyes. Qualifying for Europe would be among the finest achievements of his long managerial career.
In the aftermath of that draw 14 months ago, the differential in points was 30 in Liverpool’s favour (57 to 27 after 24 league games). Now, their advantage stands at five (52 to 47 after 32 games), with Liverpool in fifth and Everton eighth going into this weekend’s fixtures.
Everton have coped far better with their season of transition, even allowing for the hardly comparable expectations of the two clubs.
A dozen players left last summer, ten have arrived in two transfer windows since, and if, like Liverpool, some of the recruits have not fired the imagination (Thierno Barry, Tyler Dibling) or had their season ended by injury (Jack Grealish), the impression that the club are moving forwards has stuck.
The recent 3-0 victory over Chelsea was seismic, the first time their £800million stadium has truly felt like home, with the midfielder Dewsbury-Hall impressing against the club that sold him for £29million in August last year.
“That game surprised me, it was like, ‘Oh, wow!’ ” he says. “Now it’s made me think, ‘Is this going to be another massive occasion?’ And I know it is.
“It’s going to be a heated day. It’s a different sort of game to what it’s been the last couple of years. We’re both fighting for the same thing with six games to go.
“I do think it’s a bit of a different dynamic in this game. Naturally, there are going to be different mindsets. They have just won the league and people will say they are underachieving this year.
“In recent years, we have been down towards the lower end of the table, but people will be saying we are maybe overachieving.
“We are raring to go, thinking, ‘Can we achieve this?’ and they will probably be thinking, ‘We’ve just got to win this game’. It does bring different emotions.”
Nine months ago, Dewsbury-Hall was part of the Chelsea squad that was congratulated by Donald Trump after beating Paris Saint-Germain in the Club World Cup final.
“It was definitely surreal,” he said. “Whatever anyone thinks, he’s still the president of America, and the fact we are lifting a trophy next to him on stage was quite weird.”
Yet Dewsbury-Hall did not feel a sense of true belonging at Chelsea. The 27-year-old describes himself as a “scholar of football”, who will decamp to another room if “the missus tries to put Netflix on” when a live game is on.
It means that while he has no family attachment to Merseyside, he has many recollections of previous derby encounters, reeling off references to Phil Jagielka’s thunderbolt in 2014, Everton’s win at Anfield during Covid, but also Jones’s screamer for Liverpool in the FA Cup in 2020.
That thirst for the game meant he yearned to be integral to something, and Moyes’s vision carried huge appeal. A dozen goal contributions, including last weekend’s late equaliser against Brentford, have marked him out as a bargain buy in this era of inflated fees. He has quickly understood what makes Everton tick.
“I probably didn’t have it as much at Chelsea,” the former Leicester City midfielder says. “I mean, I was very good in the dressing room. I had a lot of good friends there. Tried to play as well as I possibly could with the time given, but didn’t really get that feeling where I was really counted on and people looked to me for inspiration.
“And I do feel like I’ve got that more here. The fact that I’m helping the team as well is massively important to me.
“I’m probably at a stage in my career where I want to take that ownership and responsibility, to be the sort of person people look at and help drive a team.
“Here, there is pressure on me, but I look at that as a privilege, because it means there’s expectation. I’m trying to harness that and I think, so far, I’m doing it well.
“But there’s a lot of pressure on these last six games. Not just on me, but I’m part of that and trying to do something in these games and get us over the line. Hopefully I can live up to that.”
Everton’s remaining fixtures
Liverpool (H), April 19
West Ham (A), April 25
Manchester City (H), May 4
Crystal Palace (A), May 9
Sunderland (H), May 17
Tottenham (A), May 24
On one of his social media platforms, Dewsbury-Hall is pictured alongside the Alan Ball quote: “Once Everton has touched you nothing will be the same.” His recent assertion that there are more blues than reds roaming the streets of the city caused an inevitable stir.
“I did get a fair-few people chomping, but it’s all part of it,” he says. “Now I need to go and back it up in the game. I can only go off what I see. It does add a little bit of spice. Hopefully, I can do well and score at the weekend.”
Dewsbury-Hall’s first experience of this fixture came back in September, when Liverpool won 2-1, continuing their perfect start to the season — at least in terms of results.
Afterwards, an irate Moyes took his team to task for being too nice. Liverpool should not expect that mistake to be repeated.
“He reminded us, ‘Look, remember what happened at Anfield in those first 30 minutes — it wasn’t our level,’ ” Dewsbury-Hall says. “There is no way we are going to be starting a game like that again. He has almost let us know, ‘It’s there for you now — don’t let them come to the stadium and think it is going to be an easy game’. I’m hoping that is what you will see.”
Everton v Liverpool
Premier League Sunday, 2pm TV Sky Sports Premier League
Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall: Tarky hasn’t shut up about derby goal
The Everton midfielder and self-professed ‘scholar of football’ is relishing the chance to make history in the first Merseyside derby at Hill Dickinson Stadium
April 17 2026, The Times
Some 432 days will have passed and still the memories remain as vivid as ever.
James Tarkowski’s 98th-minute thunderous volley to rescue a point for Everton against Liverpool and the explosion of noise that reverberated around the stands at Goodison Park in the last derby at the famous old ground.
The clash between Abdoulaye Doucouré and Curtis Jones, which led to them being shown red cards at full-time, as a pulsating 2-2 draw descended into carnage.
The visiting head coach Arne Slot, in the midst of an uncharacteristic meltdown, accusing the referee Michael Oliver of “f***ing giving them everything” and potentially costing him a Premier League crown. He was shown a red card, too, along with his assistant, Sipke Hulshoff.
Of course, much has changed since Everton last had their neighbours over — not least the venue. The first Merseyside derby at the Hill Dickinson Stadium has a hard act to follow.
“Tarky’s not shut up about it,” Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall says, as he watches a rerun of the moment that sparked all that chaos back in February 2025. “It is one of the most iconic goals of recent history at Everton. I’ve not seen him do it much since!
“If you do something in a big game like this, it will give you a little gold star next to your name, won’t it? That’s enough motivation for me.”
A slice of history awaits the victors on Sunday but there is more at stake for both city rivals, which reflects their contrasting fortunes. Slot’s fears regarding the title last season proved unfounded, yet this encounter feels like an ordeal for a team who have been bundled out of the FA Cup and Champions League in the past fortnight, and must secure a top-five finish to return to Europe’s elite and salvage a sliver of consolation from a torturous campaign.
Everton, in contrast, can sense an opportunity to accelerate the transformation that is taking place under their manager David Moyes. Qualifying for Europe would be among the finest achievements of his long managerial career.
In the aftermath of that draw 14 months ago, the differential in points was 30 in Liverpool’s favour (57 to 27 after 24 league games). Now, their advantage stands at five (52 to 47 after 32 games), with Liverpool in fifth and Everton eighth going into this weekend’s fixtures.
Everton have coped far better with their season of transition, even allowing for the hardly comparable expectations of the two clubs.
A dozen players left last summer, ten have arrived in two transfer windows since, and if, like Liverpool, some of the recruits have not fired the imagination (Thierno Barry, Tyler Dibling) or had their season ended by injury (Jack Grealish), the impression that the club are moving forwards has stuck.
The recent 3-0 victory over Chelsea was seismic, the first time their £800million stadium has truly felt like home, with the midfielder Dewsbury-Hall impressing against the club that sold him for £29million in August last year.
“That game surprised me, it was like, ‘Oh, wow!’ ” he says. “Now it’s made me think, ‘Is this going to be another massive occasion?’ And I know it is.
“It’s going to be a heated day. It’s a different sort of game to what it’s been the last couple of years. We’re both fighting for the same thing with six games to go.
“I do think it’s a bit of a different dynamic in this game. Naturally, there are going to be different mindsets. They have just won the league and people will say they are underachieving this year.
“In recent years, we have been down towards the lower end of the table, but people will be saying we are maybe overachieving.
“We are raring to go, thinking, ‘Can we achieve this?’ and they will probably be thinking, ‘We’ve just got to win this game’. It does bring different emotions.”
Nine months ago, Dewsbury-Hall was part of the Chelsea squad that was congratulated by Donald Trump after beating Paris Saint-Germain in the Club World Cup final.
“It was definitely surreal,” he said. “Whatever anyone thinks, he’s still the president of America, and the fact we are lifting a trophy next to him on stage was quite weird.”
Yet Dewsbury-Hall did not feel a sense of true belonging at Chelsea. The 27-year-old describes himself as a “scholar of football”, who will decamp to another room if “the missus tries to put Netflix on” when a live game is on.
It means that while he has no family attachment to Merseyside, he has many recollections of previous derby encounters, reeling off references to Phil Jagielka’s thunderbolt in 2014, Everton’s win at Anfield during Covid, but also Jones’s screamer for Liverpool in the FA Cup in 2020.
That thirst for the game meant he yearned to be integral to something, and Moyes’s vision carried huge appeal. A dozen goal contributions, including last weekend’s late equaliser against Brentford, have marked him out as a bargain buy in this era of inflated fees. He has quickly understood what makes Everton tick.
“I probably didn’t have it as much at Chelsea,” the former Leicester City midfielder says. “I mean, I was very good in the dressing room. I had a lot of good friends there. Tried to play as well as I possibly could with the time given, but didn’t really get that feeling where I was really counted on and people looked to me for inspiration.
“And I do feel like I’ve got that more here. The fact that I’m helping the team as well is massively important to me.
“I’m probably at a stage in my career where I want to take that ownership and responsibility, to be the sort of person people look at and help drive a team.
“Here, there is pressure on me, but I look at that as a privilege, because it means there’s expectation. I’m trying to harness that and I think, so far, I’m doing it well.
“But there’s a lot of pressure on these last six games. Not just on me, but I’m part of that and trying to do something in these games and get us over the line. Hopefully I can live up to that.”
Everton’s remaining fixtures
Liverpool (H), April 19
West Ham (A), April 25
Manchester City (H), May 4
Crystal Palace (A), May 9
Sunderland (H), May 17
Tottenham (A), May 24
On one of his social media platforms, Dewsbury-Hall is pictured alongside the Alan Ball quote: “Once Everton has touched you nothing will be the same.” His recent assertion that there are more blues than reds roaming the streets of the city caused an inevitable stir.
“I did get a fair-few people chomping, but it’s all part of it,” he says. “Now I need to go and back it up in the game. I can only go off what I see. It does add a little bit of spice. Hopefully, I can do well and score at the weekend.”
Dewsbury-Hall’s first experience of this fixture came back in September, when Liverpool won 2-1, continuing their perfect start to the season — at least in terms of results.
Afterwards, an irate Moyes took his team to task for being too nice. Liverpool should not expect that mistake to be repeated.
“He reminded us, ‘Look, remember what happened at Anfield in those first 30 minutes — it wasn’t our level,’ ” Dewsbury-Hall says. “There is no way we are going to be starting a game like that again. He has almost let us know, ‘It’s there for you now — don’t let them come to the stadium and think it is going to be an easy game’. I’m hoping that is what you will see.”
Everton v Liverpool
Premier League Sunday, 2pm TV Sky Sports Premier League
Statistics: Posted by NickNack — Sat Apr 18, 2026 7:05 am