Dwight McNeil has spoken about the feeling within the Everton dressing room following the 3-2 defeat at Aston Villa
Dwight McNeil believes he’s able to have a more influential role in games in his new central role but insists everyone in the Everton team is under no illusions that throwing away 2-0 leads in consecutive matches to lose both 3-2 is not good enough.
Despite McNeil’s opening goal at Aston Villa and then his free kick delivery picking out Dominic Calvert-Lewin to double their advantage, an Ollie Watkins brace restored parity before home substitute Jhon Duran snatched all three points for Unai Emery’s side with a sensational long-range strike to leave Sean Dyche’s men with a fourth consecutive Premier League defeat this term.
McNeil told the ECHO: “We’ve not had much to say in the dressing room. It would be bad enough for it to have happened twice in a season but twice back-to-back is just not good enough. We all know that as a team. The positive has to be that there’s another game last week and we need to look at it together over where it’s gone wrong and defend better.”
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The 24-year-old added: “It was difficult to take. It’s been the same old story the last two games, 2-0 up and conceding three goals.
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“The positives are the goals we scored to go 2-0 up but there are a lot of negatives again because we can’t hold on to the lead. In my opinion they were three sloppy goals.”
Once again, despite getting themselves ahead, Everton spurned several big opportunities to extend their lead before allowing their opponents back into the contest and McNeil admitted it was a bitter pill to swallow for both players and Blues supporters alike. He said: “It’s also disappointing that we haven’t taken all our chances. It was the same against Bournemouth as we didn’t punish the opposition but in the Premier League if you don’t take chances then you’ll get punished yourself and they’re the fine margins that we’re at.
“Going forwards, we’ve got to correct it at both ends of the pitch and have got to do better in both boxes.
“It’s difficult for the fans because we know how passionate they are. From their point of view, they’re going to be hugely disappointed losing 3-2 again when we’ve been winning 2-0 in both games back-to-back but for us, we’ve got to stay focused on ourselves.”
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McNeil was primarily deployed as a left winger last season but with summer signing Iliman Ndiaye occupying that position in both of their two most recent matches, he has switched to a central support role behind striker Calvert-Lewin where he believes he can have more of a say on proceedings. He said: “To be honest, at the minute, I don’t feel anything except from disappointment really. However, I’m enjoying being in there with Dom.
“I’ve got a good relationship with him off the pitch so it’s nice to be playing alongside him in the new role as I feel I can impact games more and show more of what I’m about. However, for me the team is more important and it’s no points on the board after four games.
“We’ve got to look forwards now. These next three games before the next international break, we have to pick up points, 100%.
“My main focus going into those next three games is to try and help the team as the most important thing is to get points on the board.”