EXCLUSIVE: Chris Beesley spoke to Everton FA Cup winner Anders Limpar who proposes a big change in tactics to help strikers Beto and Thierno Barry
Everton strikers Thierno Barry and Beto
Everton strikers Thierno Barry and Beto
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Everton FA Cup hero Anders Limpar has a radical plan to increase the output of David Moyes’ goal-shy strikers Beto and Thierno Barry who have scored just once between them in the Premier League so far this season.
Despite both of them having featured in all seven of Everton’s matches in the competition this term, Beto’s header at Wolverhampton Wanderers on August 30 is the only time a Blues striker has hit the net in 2025/26 with the Guinea-Bissau international also registering with a tap-in at home to League One Mansfield Town in a Carabao Cup tie three days earlier.
Although the pair have each been fielded in every game, they’ve only been on the pitch together for the final four minutes of Everton’s 1-0 defeat at Leeds United in their opening fixture.
Limpar was the flying winger who Everton’s last trophy-winning manager Joe Royle dubbed “a football genius” among his tough-tackling “Dogs of War” side that took a bite out of Fergie’s Manchester United to defeat them 1-0 in the 1995 FA Cup final and he reckons the current Blues boss should go back to adopting a tactic that was prevalent then, of operating with a strike partnership rather than continuing with the modern trend of having a solitary frontman spearheading the attack. The Swede told the ECHO: “If Everton played with two players up front, we’d probably score more goals. Then, the forwards can run off each other.
“At the moment, I can see Thierno Barry or Beto and they’re stuck in the middle sometimes and you have to place your trust in your wingers. For many years, Everton played 4-4-2, but now we’re playing this modern system with one up front.
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“The player who is up front on his own is isolated sometimes. You have to have such an unbelievable touch to keep to Beto or Barry and keep the ball, but if they can do that, we can look even better.”
Barry was often deployed in a strike partnership last season as his previous club Villarreal would regularly play a 4-4-2 formation but Limpar points out that the requirements on him now are very different. Speaking courtesy of best US Open betting sites, the 60-year-old said: “I think it’s like night and day for a forward, going from two up front, running off another player, to just one. Now you have to do everything on your own, you have to have a good touch and rely on your wingers.
“Barry and Beto are not players who can take people on by themselves to score a goal, they have to trust the wingers to provide them with chances. I’m not a Premier League manager, but with strikers like that, I think you need to have really good players around you to score more goals.
“The big expectations always come with the money. These days in football you are given no time, you have to be a success straightaway.
“When you come to a new club, especially as an attacking player, you have to settle in and cope with a new system. Take Thierno Barry for example, he’s come in from another country, perhaps he’s living in a hotel? You need to have a bit of patience with these young players.
“When it comes to the price tag, it’s not his fault. You have to be an instant success or else everyone says you’re a failure, but they need a couple of months at least.”
With Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall returning from his one-match suspension served against Crystal Palace when Everton return to action at the Etihad Stadium on Saturday and on-loan Jack Grealish ineligible to play against parent club Manchester City, Moyes also has some thinking to do behind his strikers, but Limpar reckons one of his substitutes against the Eagles has played himself into the reckoning. He said: “Charly Alcaraz is good on the ball, and he had a tremendous game against Crystal Palace. We need more players like that because when I’ve been watching Everton in recent years, often we’ve not looked comfortable on the ball.
“This season, we’ve looked much better on the ball, whether we’ve been at home or away. Something has happened in training under David Moyes because we look like a proper Everton team now, so I have high hopes for this season, we’re looking good.
“Alcaraz is perhaps a player you need to see every day and Moyes will know what he’s doing, but he was a game-changer when he came on, and looked really good.”