Roberto Martinez admits that Everton must tighten up defensively when they face Hull City on New Year's Day in order to halt a run of poor away form stretching back over two months.
The Toffees have not won a Premier League match away from home since beating Burnley on Oct. 26 and have picked up just a single point at Sunderland since then.
Martinez, however, is refusing to compromise on the club's tradition of entertaining possession football.
"Knowing what your philosophy is as a club is important and ours is one that I think fits very well,'' Martinez said at his news conference ahead of the Hull clash.
"It represents Everton from the '30s to the great years in the '60s, to winning titles in the '80s and as a team we want to control the ball and as a team we are great in possession but in any team you need to be able to defend.
"At the moment we are suffering, sometimes through individual errors, sometimes you get three or four major decisions that don't go in your favour and they go against you and you have to cope with that.
"I think it's going to make us a stronger unit and there'll be a real fight to show who's ready to cope with our expectations.
"It's a bit of a negative run of results at the moment and we need to stop it but there's never a question mark over the style and how we want to play.
"What's a question mark is whether we've been good in the way we want to play and at the moment we've conceded too many goals for one reason or another and that's quite easy to rectify,'' the Spaniard added.
The festive period has not been kind to the Toffees having lost their last three matches. Coupled with a run of just one win in their last seven league games, Martinez admits that as far as results go this has been his most challenging period at the helm since taking over from David Moyes.
However, he is keen to accentuate the positives in order to turn the team around going into 2015.
He said: "We've become a stronger team than we were last season in many aspects in my eyes but we've become a little bit more open and exposed in terms of conceding goals.
"That's come a little from individual errors but a little from bad luck as well but I think we need to get rid of that negative momentum that makes you a little bit exposed and conceding goals. I do think that from where we were last campaign we've improved as a team going forward, our goalscoring record in every game is outstanding.'
"Before the Southampton game we had the third best defensive record in the last six games in the league. The stats are very deceiving so you have to be careful.
"Obviously we conceded six goals against Chelsea which is going to affect any stat in the same manner we were also the only team to score three goals past Chelsea.
"At Everton I'll always take responsibility but we're not inferior to anyone and we'll always go into any game trying to win the game.