By DOMINIC KING
Published: 14:42 EST, 6 December 2025 | Updated: 14:42 EST, 6 December 2025
David Moyes shook his fists, the South Stand erupted with all its power but all Thierno Barry could do was emotionally drop to his knees.
It has been a torturous few months for Barry, a France Under-21 international whose performances have sparked debate. But on the stroke of half-time, he opened up his right foot and gleefully changed the narrative: here was a moment to perfectly capture what football is all about.
If ever a fanbase wants its centre forward to thrive, it is Everton. One of the best to score goals for them (albeit briefly) was sat up in the posh seats for Nottingham Forest’s visit and there is no doubt Gary Lineker would have approved of the way Barry dispatched his first goal in Royal Blue.
‘There has been a real energy coming from the crowd for him and I am as delighted for them, as I am for Thierno, that he scored,’ said Moyes, who wasn’t getting carried away with the quality of Everton’s performance but who was delighted with the significance of the win.
‘You hear so many managers talking about getting the fans behind the team because of the difference it makes. We have given him opportunities; he has started the last six games and I do not want six more games with only one goal. But he is young and it is a difficult role to play.’
Thierno Barry strokes the ball home for the first time in a massive moment for the striker
And this was a difficult game. Nottingham Forest have more options and more strength in depth than Everton but Moyes, in that meticulous way of his, is building firm foundations and for all that Sean Dyche bemoaned how his team’s standards had slipped, the result was never in doubt.
This was because players such as James Garner, Jake O’Brien and Michael Keane, so often unheralded, ran themselves to a standstill. Moyes highlighted James Tarkowski’s influence though Dyche pointed how the defender was lucky to escape censure for a stupid barge on Dan Ndoye.
‘I told Tarky I was going to come in here and tell you what I thought,’ said Dyche, back at the club he kept afloat for two years. ‘But I am not taking anything away from Everton. All credit to them. We just never got going, for whatever reason.’
Much of it was down to Everton’s superior quality, with Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall a persistent, buzzing menace, his endeavour creating the opening goal after 84 seconds when Nikola Milenkovic turned in the midfielder’s cross and bookending the afternoon with a fine finish in the 76th minute.
Dewsbury-Hall has been an inspired signing, endearing himself to his new fanbase with a determination to run and then run some more. His character is outstanding and he has really come to the fore in the last few weeks, taking the team forward with his energy.
Barry shows his joy at finally breaking his Everton duck after signing from Villarreal
Former Everton striker Gary Lineker watches from the stands at Hill Dickinson Stadium
You could sense Moyes’s delight with it all. Will Everton play with more panache this season? Yes. Does Moyes demand improvement? Absolutely. But what can’t be stressed enough is the importance of winning the bread-and-butter games, the ones that so often in the past have caused trouble.
A haul of 12 points from the last 15 has enabled Everton to zoom up into the areas of the table Moyes expects to be around and confidence will mushroom accordingly, not least for Barry, who deserved his standing ovation when he was substituted in the second period.
Things have been rough for him since he moved from Villarreal for £27million; to get him up to speed with the physicality of the Premier League, Moyes has asked his defenders to kick him a bit more in training and he’s also nursed a shoulder issue that came from a dislocation.
‘But it’s great that he has got his goal,’ Moyes said – and there wasn’t one Evertonian who felt inclined to disagree.