Sean Dyche has declared it’s time for Everton players to take "responsibility" and start converting their many chances as the Blues fell to defeat against West Ham United on Saturday afternoon - despite creating an abundance of clear-cut opportunities once again.

The hosts went ahead early in the second half through a Beto header but forfeited the lead cheaply just six minutes later as former Everton defender Kurt Zouma converted a James Ward-Prowse corner. Two late goals from Tomas Soucek and Edson Alvarez then sealed a 3-1 win for the east Londoners.

The frustration of the defeat was enhanced by Everton’s wasteful display in front of goal as Dyche’s men generated 22 shots in the contest, 11 of which were on target, including Beto’s first-half missed penalty when the game was still level at 0-0. 

Saturday afternoon's defeat was the fifth time this season Everton have had 20+ shots in a Premier League home game, but they’ve ended on the losing side in three of those matches.

Reflecting on this latest setback, Dyche admitted the group cannot continue to spur so many gilt-edged opportunities and bluntly stated the responsibility lay with his players to start showing a more clinical edge in front of goal.

"I try to tell the truth about the performances," explained Dyche to evertontv. "It is a decent performance. It’s a performance that can win games, but you can’t keep creating [those chances and not winning]. I can’t keep saying the xG is through the roof. I can’t keep saying that.

"The chances - they’re there for all to see. It’s about time we took responsibility and got players scoring goals. That’s down to myself, and the coaches, but also the players on the pitch.

"It’s just a strange thing at Goodison and I can’t work it out. I’d love to be out there to score. I’ve seen this place erupt and I’ve felt it. Why would you not want to have the clarity to go to score a goal?

"That’s what we have to change - that mindset because we had so many chances again today. It’s alright people saying about how their keeper had a worldie and all that, but there are too many keepers coming here who have apparently had worldies. There’s been too many times we’ve missed that many chances.

"And in the Premier League, if you don’t take your chances, you don’t kill games off. We had the chances today, at 1-0, to kill the game off, and we didn’t do that."

Dyche continued: "I can’t keep saying it every week. At the end of the day, we’ve created so many chances today, and we’re creating good chances. Chances to kill games off. That’s when we go: ‘Right, come on now, lads. It’s a responsibility of ours'. As managers and coaches, we can only get them into position, and that’s the moment of truth. That’s the clarity we need now, because there are so many chances.

"I wouldn’t have a single complaint if I was an attacking player at this football club because there are so many chances created, but we have to take them."

Looking ahead, Dyche iterated the onus is now on him, his staff and players to change the story and show they have the capacity to start turning what have been strong performances into positive results going forward. 

"We’re the only ones who can change [the narrative]," he added. "There are performances we’ve produced - I cannot believe we haven’t won games - but we haven’t. That’s a fact - and that’s what we’ve got to change. Turn good performances into wins, and even performances to make sure we don’t lose. It’s very, very frustrating not to win games like that when you create that much.

"I suppose the other way of looking at it is reverse psychology is ‘right, everyone thinks you can’t score now’ where you’ve never got more freedom to score. It’s the most free you can ever be in your life as a footballer when everyone thinks you’ve got no chance and can’t score goals. So let’s go out and score some goals, find the big moments."