Jack Grealish peeled away in celebration. The joy on his face was palpable. Infectious. This was the moment, sending the roof off at the Hill Dickinson Stadium, with Everton sealing a last-minute winner against Crystal Palace in the Premier League.
19 games unbeaten. No more. The Eagles had been grounded and Everton had taken off. That’s 11 points on the board for the Toffees, and only seven matches played. Last year, 12 fixtures were needed to reach the same points total.
David Moyes’ squad are coming together, even with the centre-forwards still toiling. Beto is beginning to look rather stale, while £27m summer signing Thierno Barry hasn’t yet provided the quality or fluency to suggest he can lead the line.
It’s a familiar problem on the blue half of Merseyside.
Everton's striker issues
After Moyes’ appointment last winter, Beto came alive. He had previously laboured under Sean Dyche’s management, but scored five from four Premier League games to rebind the rigging and turn the ship away from relegation danger.
With one top-flight goal this season, things need to change if Beto is to retain his star spot as the frontman. Everton have been here before, with struggles at centre-forward a common theme since Farhad Moshiri first purchased a stake in 2016.
While Dominic Calvert-Lewin had some high points across his long stay in Liverpool, the tall and commanding star lacked control of his fitness levels and toiled over the final years of his Everton career.
Few and far between are the strikers who have left Everton with their heads held high, and Beto knows he needs an upswing in form if he wishes to edge away from an unwanted reputation when he does play his football elsewhere.
Beto
80
17
Dominic Calvert-Lewin
273
71
Neal Maupay
32
1
Moise Kean
39
4
Richarlison
152
53
Cenk Tosun
61
11
Salomon Rondon
31
3
Here is a list of differing fortunes, but there are more than a few strikers who will look back at their time at Goodison Park with regret.
Moise Kean, for example, arrived from Juventus as a teenage prodigy with a weight of expectation. But it didn’t work out in England.
Everton's new Moise Kean
Everton haven’t always hit the jackpot in the transfer market over the past several years, but recent additions certainly speak of greater accuracy and synergy when planning for the future.
Kean, who completed a £25m move to England in August 2019, was billed as a real coup for a first-class prospect, but he never managed to make it work on Merseyside and returned to his homeland, having scored only four times and completed a series of loan spells.
Now, Kean is a superstar in Italy with Fiorentina, prolific and powerful, and Everton might want to bear that one in mind when considering Tyler Dibling, who arrived from Southampton this summer for £42m but has endured a difficult start, used sparingly by Moyes and yet to show off the skills that caused such a furore regarding his services.
Sunday’s tie was considered a huge opportunity for the 19-year-old. Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall was suspended, after all. But he failed to take the opportunity, with the Liverpool Echo slapping him with a 4/10 match rating and saying he was ‘anonymous at times’.
Dibling is young and talented and has demonstrated his potential already in the Premier League, but he’s a work in progress. He was hounded out of any promising positions at the weekend, and it’s unlikely he has gained Moyes’ trust at this stage.
This “world-class talent”, as he has been described by Southampton youth coach Andy Goldie, may well reach the end of the campaign with little individual triumphs to boast about. Perhaps there will be scrutiny, and knots of adversity and frustration from which he must disentangle himself and keep his head down and work hard.
Minutes played
45′
Goals
0
Assists
0
Shots (on target)
0 (0)
Accurate passes
6/7 (86%)
Chances created
0
Dribbles
0/3
Tackles
1
Duels won
3/10
Dibling impressed with Southampton last year, a bright spark during a difficult year. Saints were doomed, and that was a fact long before the season curtailed. But Dibling shone, notching seven goal involvements across the term and impressing with his strength and pace and gusto.
The lesson here is that Everton have paid for a youngster who is anything but the finished product. Maybe it will take time, and maybe he will need a loan spell away to find his feet.
Perhaps he won’t. But Everton must keep the faith in a top prospect and watch him bloom into a star down the line, because Everton and Moyes know what they have paid for, and there is a lofty, grand-scale future for this one.