When Everton run out ahead of today’s clash with West Ham at the London Stadium, they will do so without two of their key players. One of them, Jarrad Branthwaite, is an undisputed jewel in the Blues’ crown but, sadly, he has played his last match of 2025/26 after injuring his hamstring in last Sunday’s Merseyside derby.
Until recently, and apart from a spell a few weeks into David Moyes’s second spell as manager last year, it’s unlikely many Toffees would have regarded Beto as “key” to Everton’s prospects of making Europe, but five goals in his last six outings have highlighted his importance down the home stretch of the season.
Unfortunately, the Portuguese-born striker will be forced to sit out this weekend having fallen under the Premier League’s concussion protocols following his clash of heads with Ibrahima Konaté. Ordinarily, Thierno Barry would be his automatic replacement but listening to Moyes’s spiky pre-match press conference yesterday, it might not be that simple.
The manager was in cantankerous mood when doing his media duties at Finch Farm and while he agreed that the game against the Hammers could represent an opportunity for Barry to impress, he added the caveat, “If I choose to play him”.
It could have been an effort to keep his opposite number, Nuno Espírito Santo guessing over his team selection; it could just as easily have been another very public message to a younger squad member to up his game and prove his worth. If so, the evidence thus far, when you look at the likes of Tyler Dibling, suggests that it’s not a tactic that is bearing much fruit.
If you asked Moyes, perhaps he’d say he expected it or that he hasn’t been all that surprised but the striker situation at Everton this season has been a journey.
For the first two months of the campaign, it was very much a case of “who wants it?” between Beto and Barry, with the Scot chopping and changing between his two centre-forwards, just waiting for one of them to stake a claim to the first-choice spot leading the line.
Beto, starting his third season with the Blues and five years senior of the summer signing from Villarreal, had the edge when the League kicked off again in August but his unconvincing display against Leeds United at Elland Road led to Barry being given the nod in the home opener at Bramley-Moore Dock the following weekend.
The Frenchman acquitted himself well but struggled in the ensuing home matches against Aston Villa, West Ham and Crystal Palace which ensured that the two strikers were then swapped on a weekly basis until the manager decided in late October that Barry should be given an extended run up front to see if he had successfully acclimatised to English football.
An ugly miss at Sunderland suggested he might blow the opportunity but after he was applauded off the field in the home win over Fulham in early November, a psychological barrier looked to have been cleared for Barry.
He started every match until being dropped back to the bench for the away game at Burnley but, in the interim, he notched an emotional first Everton goal against Nottingham Forest at Hill Dickinson Stadium and came off the bench in the return fixture at the City Ground to score again in a 2-0 victory.
Everton struggled in the New Year as a collective through a gruelling selection crisis but Barry still added important goals at Villa and at home to Leeds and later came off the bench to bag one at Newcastle in a thrilling 3-2 victory. That was his last goal to date, however, and he hasn’t started a game since the home loss to Manchester United on 23rd February.
Foreign players often need a full year to fully settle into life in the Premier League so shouldn’t be a surprise that Barry’s form has been patchy and when asked by BBC Merseyside’s Giulia Bould what he needs to do to win his place back, Moyes asserted: “Well, he can score more, play well and be a team player.”
If the manager does have frustrations with Barry, that last part could well be the most significant driver behind it, but where his charge that the player needs to score more is concerned, things aren’t quite that simple.
Like Beto, Barry has scored as many goals this season as his cumulative xG (expected goals) suggest he should have this season, which suggests that, in general, he is scoring the chances that come his way… which isn’t many. Certainly, in the 71 minutes of action (not including stoppage time) he has had since scoring at St James’s Park, it’s hard to think of a single scoring opportunity he has had.
Playing up front for Everton, particularly in the last quarter of matches when game-changing substitutions to add impetus on the wings or in midfield aren’t always forthcoming from Moyes or aren’t there at all, is not an easy assignment. It involves a lot of running, challenging for long balls and feeding off scraps.
There is always the argument that top strikers can make their own opportunities but Barry, being raw, gangly and relatively inexperienced, is not yet at that level. He has popped up with some very good goals this season and exhibited tremendous composure but he looks lost if the team as a whole is not creating anything.
His cameo in the derby, never an easy game to come into cold, was, clearly, the nadir of his time on Merseyside so far. Coming on the heels of the incident at the Emirates where he provided tickets to friends of his in the away section that led to a war of words breaking out with Everton fans, his stock has never been lower.
How Moyes treats Barry over the final five games of the campaign and how the player himself responds could well decide whether or not he remains an Everton player beyond the summer.
Regardless of how problematic Barry’s temperament in character may or may not be, the fact remains that Everton have invested £27m pounds in him and there’s nothing to be gained by the manager throwing his hands up in despair if he won’t respond to a particular style of man-management.
He is very evidently a confidence player who would benefit from an arm around the shoulder rather than the cold variety from his manager but, on the occasion of his 750th Premier League match, Moyes is likely not one for changing.
Hopefully, Barry is in the starting XI as we would normally expect, he plays to his full potential, the team is able to use the emotional hammer blow of losing the derby in stoppage time as fuel to drive them on to another away success and all will be well heading into the final four games of the season.
The alternative is a situation where Everton either attempt to offload an unhappy striker, just as they did with Moise Kean a few years ago, or are forced to carry Barry into next season where his form and mental state will be far from predictable.
In truth, if the Blues miss out on European qualification, the die may already have been cast by Beto’s recent form. If Everton, as a club, are approaching the continuing rebuild of the squad with the requisite ruthlessness, at least one of their two first-team strikers, neither of whom have proved themselves good enough so far, will need to be sold this summer if the Blues are only involved in domestic competition next term but are truly looking to kick on.
A few weeks ago, that would surely have been Beto. Now? Unless he finishes the season with a scoring run of his own, it’s hard to see past Barry being the one Everton’s recruitment team will need to move on.
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