James Tarkowski has issued a stark warning to his team-mates ahead of next season after Everton narrowly avoided a first relegation in 72 years.
The Blues posted the lowest equivalent points total in their 135-year history in the Football League/Premier League and were one goal away from going down for the first time since 1951 before a 57th-minute strike gave them the victory over Bournemouth they required to secure survival on the final day of the campaign.
Everton’s match-winner against the Cherries, Abdoulaye Doucoure, is one of seven players within Sean Dyche’s squad to have been previously relegated from the Premier League (Watford, 2020) alongside Michael Keane (Burnley, 2015); Idrissa Gueye (Aston Villa, 2016); Jordan Pickford (Sunderland, 2017); Ben Godfrey (Norwich City, 2020) plus Dwight McNeil and Tarkowski himself (Burnley, 2022), and after being relieved not to have suffered the drop in consecutive seasons, the centre-back has demanded improvements at Goodison Park.
The Premier League fixtures for 2023/24 were announced this week and Tarkowski told evertonfc.com: “There’s a lot of work to be done. We need to do a lot of work in the training ground and a lot in pre-season, too.
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“We had games last season where I felt like we played well, but not won or got a result. So we need to score more goals – that’s for sure.
“It’s a big pre-season for us because we can’t be in a position again when we're at the wrong end of the table.”
Everton at least got themselves into a position where – unlike 1994 and 1998, the two previous occasions in which their Premier League status has been under threat going into the final game – their fate was in their own hands. Tarkowski – who was the only outfield player in the Premier League to be on the field for every minute of the season – explained the importance of focusing on their own fixture rather than what was going on at either the King Power Stadium or Elland Road given that with Leicester City having taken the lead on 34 minutes against West Ham United, the Blues were heading down for a total of 23 minutes of play either side of the interval.
He said: “It was and credit to the lads because I thought we played pretty well. It’s tough without playing with a real focal point of a striker with our style of play, but it was a great finish for the goal. I’m just relieved.
"It’s been a tough season, a disappointing season, and it was an emotional day. We needed to do our job and we got there in the end.
“It was a great finish by Doucs, and we stuck in there and defended our goal for our lives, but it was more relief than an elated feeling because it was such a difficult season.”
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