Everton 2-0 Fulham ANALYSIS: Thierno Barry bonds with Toffees crowd as David Moyes gets the better of the Cottagers again

Fulham have been the opposite of a bogey team over the years for David Moyes and proved just the tonic again for the Everton boss. 

Idrissa Gana Gueye scored a scrappy goal in first-half stoppage time to help end a three-match winless streak and edge the Toffees towards the top half of the table, with veteran defender Michael Keane heading home late on to confirm the three points. 

It was Moyes’s 20th Premier League victory over the Cottagers, which makes them his favourite opposition by some distance – he has no more than 12 wins over any other team.

This victory came after Everton had won just one of their previous eight games and had started to see early-season optimism slowly eroding, with fans’ grumbles growing and Moyes’s two strikers both short of confidence. 

But the 2-0 scoreline flattered Fulham after Everton had three goals chalked off for offside and the away side barely threatened at the other end. Marco Silva, once of this parish, now sits just a point above the relegation zone.

Barry bonds with home crowd

Aside from the goals, the loudest applause of the afternoon came when striker Thierno Barry was substituted on 79 minutes. 

After signing for £27million from Villarreal in the summer, the Frenchman has a record of played 13, scored zero. 

Moyes is asked nearly every day about his No 9 problems, with fellow striker Beto only netting once this season, and the boss said on Friday how Barry did not help his cause to be in the XI with two ‘stupid’ yellow cards in previous games. 

But Barry put in an all-round pleasing display. He linked up with team-mates, put his body around by leading the press and went oh so close to opening his Premier League account but was pulled back for offside. 

He missed a golden chance at Sunderland on Monday and looked like he wanted the earth below to swallow him whole but Moyes deserves credit for sticking by Barry here. Drop him and the 23-year-old’s confidence would have been on the floor. 

'All the Evertonians know that both the players are looking for confidence,’ said Moyes on his two strikers. ‘Barry was giving them something to shout about. He worked his nuts off, he ran hard, he was committed to the team.’

Was he perfect? No, and he knows goals are the magic currency that will keep him in the side. But a battling performance will give him confidence he can kick on… and a rousing reception from the home faithful cannot do him any harm.

No Silva service for Fulham

Raul Jimenez fed off a diet of scraps as Fulham mustered an expected goals (xG) tally of 0.40, while substitute striker Rodrigo Muniz was on the pitch for just 17 minutes before going off, presumably injured.

It was not their fault, more those behind them. The Cottagers have had a number of exciting players over their four-year stay in the top flight – but this current rendition is looking rather toothless, with the creative players not, well, creating enough.

‘More than the result, it was a very disappointing performance,’ said Silva. ‘We got what we deserved from the game, definitely. You can lose matches when the other team is better, but never because they are more physical. We cannot accept it, this is not a negotiation.’ 

After losing just one of the first five in the league, Silva’s side have now fallen to defeat in five of the last six and that 3-0 win over Wolves last week looks more like a blip than a side turning a corner.