By Peter Lynch

29th May, 2023 | 10:10pm

Dwight McNeil disagrees with what Everton fans did after win v Bournemouth

Dwight McNeil says Everton celebrating staying in the Premier League “doesn’t feel right” after they secured their safety on the final day of the season.

The Toffees defeated Bournemouth 1-0 at Goodison Park on Sunday (28 May) to clinch their place in the top flight for another season.

But McNeil isn’t happy with the post-match celebrations, which involved fans storming the pitch at Goodison Park.

“It’s hard to describe the relief and joy I felt yesterday, but I think this picture sums up how much it meant,” McNeil wrote on Instagram. 

“Starting this season at Everton, I had a lot to prove to people but mostly to myself. It was slow at first but I have put my heart and soul into improving my football and I hope it paid off.

“But celebrating this doesn’t feel right, we should have done better and WE NEED to do better!”

Contrasting emotions

The final day of the Premier League season was always going to be an emotional one, particularly for the supporters of Everton, Leeds United and Leicester City given their precarious positions in the table.

But as it was going into the final day, the Toffees lived up to their more favourable position by narrowly defeating Bournemouth, with the Whites and the Foxes dropping down to the Championship alongside Southampton.

Toffees supporters were understandably happy with how things turned out on Merseyside, but McNeil makes a fair point when he says that the celebrations should have been muted given the miserable campaign as a whole.

There was definitely happiness among the players and coaches, but the overriding emotion was probably relief, with the current group just glad they weren’t the ones responsible for relegating this famous club.

McNeil definitely struggled to come to life in the early stages of his Toffees career, but he ended up becoming a key reason as to how they managed to avoid relegation in the end.