The Everton forward is not letting his shootout miss haunt his efforts to build on a hot streak of form
Jordan Pickford passes the ball to team-mate Thierno Barry ahead of his penalty-kick during the Emirates FA Cup Third Round match between Everton and Sunderland. Photo by Chris Brunskill/Fantasista/Getty Images
Jordan Pickford passes the ball to team-mate Thierno Barry ahead of his penalty-kick during the Emirates FA Cup Third Round match between Everton and Sunderland. Photo by Chris Brunskill/Fantasista/Getty Images
View Image
Thierno Barry is settling in at Everton.
There is evidence of this everywhere you look - in his improving goalscoring record, on the training ground - where he is becoming more vocal, and in his developing English skills. These are all positive signs for David Moyes, particularly now his squad will attack the rest of the season without any new support up top for Barry - something the club tentatively explored in the transfer window.
For all that Moyes is pleased with Barry’s progress, the 23-year-old insists there is one thing he will not change and it is something his manager may not wish to hear: Should he find himself facing up to a goalkeeper from 12 yards, as he did against Sunderland in the FA Cup defeat last month, he does not plan to change an approach that left Moyes irate when it did not come off the first time round.
Asked whether he would do anything differently given his tame effort failed to misdirect Robin Roefs, who saved all three of Everton’s spot kicks in a miserable shootout defeat, Barry said: “It was just one penalty. It was the only penalty I missed in my career. That can happen. Even [Lionel] Messi can miss a penalty. I just said: ‘OK, we lost, now we need to focus on the league to go into Europe.’ I forgot that game and looked to the next game. My friends told me that everyone was talking about my penalty. I always shoot like this and if tomorrow I have a penalty I will shoot again like this. In football, you always have critics.”
That penalty miss was one of two notable low points for Barry in his first seven months on Merseyside. The other also came against Sunderland, with Barry missing a game-defining close range chance that was declared “miss of the season” in one national publication.
At the time, in November, Barry was yet to even register a shot on target in Royal Blue. Barely three months later he has five goals and is currently one of the Premier League’s most in-form forwards.
Such a turnaround in fortunes is not new for the France youth international, whose £27m move from Villarreal meant Everton would become his fifth club in five years. That journey has taken him from the reserves of French side Sochaux through Belgium, Switzerland, Spain and now England.
It was his experience with the Swiss side Basel that led to him having ‘Me v Me’ tattooed on his left wrist. His stint on the banks of the Rhine began with red cards in each of his first two games and then a 16 game run without a goal. He went on to score 20 that season as Basel were crowned league and Swiss Cup champions.
He explained: “When I did the first six months it was like my fault if I didn’t score, if I didn’t play good. The second part of the tattoo was when I played good I saw it as me against me. One day if I forget about things, I can remember by looking at this.”
Days after his frustration in the north east, Moyes kept faith in Barry and started him again in the 2-0 win over Fulham. Barry did not score but was given a raucous reception when he was withdrawn late in the match - that backing for his efforts the foundation for his turnaround in the weeks that followed.
The run of form through Christmas and the start of 2026 has repaid the faith Moyes maintained in his summer signing - a deal the Blues boss recently said was sanctioned by him and not the former recruitment regime that left in the summer.
Speaking after Barry’s equaliser in the recent draw with Leeds United, Moyes set out: “I'm really pleased for Thierno. I keep saying there's a lot of strikers in the Premier League that cost a lot of money and it’s not that easy for them either. And recently we've not been creating that many chances. I think prior to it we have been, maybe not tonight and recent games not as many opportunities, so he's had to take what he can.
“I think the bigger thing is that he's a young French under-21 international finding his way. His English was OK, but not great.
“I think he's just really beginning to get settled in and getting used to the whole club, the way the whole Premier League works, what's expected, the intensity of the league. And he's beginning to get used to it. He's getting used to the work levels which we are having to put in. And coming from that is that he's getting himself a few goals with it as well. And obviously, if you bring a number nine in, you want him to score. He's just beginning to get a few goals, but we need to try and create some more chances so that he can maybe get a few more.”
Barry is grateful for the support provided to him by Moyes behind-the-scenes before he found his form in front of goal. He said of his boss: “I think he knows the Premier League. I remember when I talked with him one time and said ‘I am not happy’ about my situation because I didn’t play. He told me: ‘I just need to take my time, I have seen a lot of young players come here who play good for the first two or three months and then do nothing. I want you to give me your confidence and after we can talk again in a few months.’”
A few months later and Barry is, indeed, in a very different place.