League Cup Round Three · Wolverhampton Wanderers (h) · W 1–0 · 16 September 2026

Alcaraz, three minutes off the bench, beats Wolves in the 80th minute

Dibling made the goal on his first start of the season, and the reward is Newcastle, the holders, at home in the fourth round.

Unashamedly written by a machine · The suffering is real

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Wolves, who knocked Everton out of this competition a year ago, came back as a Championship side with nine changes and Sunday's derby in mind, and Moyes answered by picking the strong team the Echo and the forum had asked for. For eighty minutes it made no difference, because Virgínia, six years an Everton goalkeeper, saved everything that came at him, including a six-yard header from Barry that should have been a goal. Then Dibling, in his first start of the season, poked the ball through to Alcaraz, who had been on the pitch for three minutes and bent it low into the far corner. The draw gave Everton Newcastle, the holders, at home in the fourth round, and Moyes, having done what was asked of him, did not stay to talk about it.

The Week Before

Two weeks after the Financial Times reported that the owners were looking for someone to share the bill, the club has still said nothing on the record. Goodison News relayed a line from Paul Joyce of The Times that The Friedkin Group's long-promised "structural solution" to UEFA's multi-club rules, the arrangement that would let Everton and Roma both play in Europe, is not what it was said to be. The site's own editorial called it a lie and speculated about a sale. That is second-hand and unanswered. The Echo asked Richard Dunne, who made his Everton debut at seventeen, whether the owners had let Moyes down. "I think he has… when they sold Beto and failed to bring in a striker, I think that was a real disappointment for them", he said, and then the sentence the club will least enjoy: "The squad building that's gone on over the last couple of years doesn't look like it's been the perfect strategy, so it's just about filling gaps all the time." The Fans' Forum's open letter is more than a fortnight old. The minutes of the chief executive's private briefings to selected supporter groups were meant to be circulated and have not appeared.

Chris Beesley of the Echo chose the week to write about the one trophy Everton have never won. The League Cup has existed since 1960. Everton have won four league titles and three FA Cups in that time and reached this final twice. They lost to Aston Villa in 1977 across three games and thirty-three days, and to Liverpool in a Maine Road replay in 1984 after Alan Hansen's handball on the line went unpunished. Three semi-finals have followed, one of them Moyes's own in 2008, and nothing else. Beesley argued that the owners "were right to target cup success", with Newcastle and Palace as the recent proof of what one afternoon at Wembley does to a club's mood. With no Europe and eighteen outfield players, he wrote, "it's not a case of choosing between the cups and staying up… Everton should just go with their strongest side and see how far it can take them." His colleague Michael Ball was blunter: "It should be payback time." The seven changes Moyes made at Molineux a year ago were, in Ball's view, something the manager "has got to take accountability for", and the players who came in "let him down". He added a warning about the goalkeeper: "If Jordan Pickford has got an injury, I think the club needs to come out and explain that."

That injury, if it is one, has become a subplot. Beesley's Monday column noted Pickford "moving gingerly" against United and Mark Travers taking "a prolonged in-game warm-up" at Tottenham, where a third goalkeeper, Tom King, was on the bench for the first time this season. Ball wrote that Pickford has been "jumping up and down, stamping his foot" and that it "appears to have affected Jordan's kicking". Neither the club nor the manager has said anything. The rest of the squad news was clearer and worse. Christian Nørgaard, the Echo reported on Monday, will not be back before the trip to Hull in October. Merlin Röhl missed Tottenham with an injury picked up against United. That leaves sixteen fit outfield players. The one piece of good news concerned the best of them. The club, Joe Thomas wrote, now believes Jarrad Branthwaite "is strong enough to play three games in a week". Moyes put it more carefully: "With Jarrad there was a programme we worked to, where we didn't play him… we think we're over that now… But I think just because of Jarrad's injuries, we're always trying to manage him as best we can." James Tarkowski, asked by Sky about his partner, offered five attributes a scout would sign off: "strong as an ox, rapid, brilliant on the ball, two footed and communicates really well." He also named the player who has "come back a different player this year": Tyrique George.

The Echo's two Everton writers published their own line-ups on Wednesday lunchtime and agreed on the principle. Beesley: "once bitten, twice shy… Get this tie won, then give your stars a breather", with O'Brien given "an overdue run-out in his favoured centre-back position", Grealish and Hackney in, and Pickford rested only "on doctor's orders". Thomas would have gone further. He would have rested Branthwaite, Tarkowski, Dewsbury-Hall and Barry, tried Johnson through the middle and Alcaraz at ten, and hoped for a first senior appearance for Braiden Graham. On Grealish the manager had already spoken, in a Sunday quote the Echo held for the morning of the game: "I think we need to use Jack and then adapt ourselves around Jack. I don't think that I'm saying: 'Jack, you'll need to adapt to everything we do'. There'll be bits Jack's very good at, and there'll be bits that he's not, and we have to try and pick up and cover the bits he's not so good at." Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall told the paper he had been voted into a four-man leadership group with Pickford, Tarkowski and Garner. He also described what he said to Harrison Armstrong on the pitch at Bournemouth, on the day the club tried to sell him: "the best thing he can do today is play how he has been playing."

Wolves arrived seventh in the Championship with a game in hand. They had won at Sheffield United three days earlier with a late goal from Raúl Jiménez, and they had a Black Country derby at Molineux four days later. Their head coach, César Peixoto, did not pretend the derby was anything but the priority. "Our bigger goal is the Championship," he told the Express & Star. "We want to change the team for sure." He changed nine. Only Jackson Tchatchoua and Ladislav Krejčí kept their places. João Virgínia, six years an Everton goalkeeper without ever reaching the new ground, made his Wolves debut against the club that let him go. Ghislain Konan made his debut too, Sean Neave made a first start, and the bench held John Ruddy, in his second spell at the club, and Kieran Trippier. Jiménez, thirty-five, started up front because, Peixoto explained afterwards, he "was only going to play 45 minutes" to keep his minutes up for Sunday.

Everton's team sheet, when it came, was five changes from Tottenham and close to what the Echo had asked for. O'Brien and Keane came in for Tarkowski and Branthwaite, who both sat on the bench. Hackney replaced Armstrong, who had started every game this season. Tyler Dibling made his first start of the season in place of Johnson. Jack Grealish made his first start since coming back, in place of George. Pickford played. The bench held Graham and the seventeen-year-old Malik Olayiwola together for the first time, alongside the two goalkeepers. In the directors' box sat Andy Burnham, the Prime Minister and a season-ticket holder, two days after the death of his father, and Mark Carney, the Prime Minister of Canada, who is also an Evertonian.

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The Match: Everton 1–0 Wolves

For ten minutes neither side found a rhythm. Wolves wanted a penalty when Neave went down, an appeal louder in the away end than on the pitch. Everton first came to life when Grealish glided at goal. Tchatchoua took him out and was booked. Grealish was then booked himself for the foul that stopped the break. What followed was the pattern of the season. Everton had the ball, worked it well to the edge of the box and no further, and the crowd waited. Hackney had a shot blocked, with a handball shout that Thomas Bramall waved away. O'Brien met Garner's corner at the near post and flicked it into the side netting. A good part of the ground cheered it as a goal, to the delight of the away end. Maitland-Niles went past Krejčí into the box, was leaned on and went down. Bramall gave a corner and spared himself the decision. Jiménez curled a free-kick just over, Wolves' most meaningful effort of the half. In the thirty-eighth minute he went down after a challenge on the edge of his own area, was treated, and limped off down the tunnel, in the Express & Star's phrase, "with a grimace on his face". Adam Armstrong came on. Peixoto's plan for his two strikers had lasted thirty-eight minutes.

Then Dibling woke up. He nutmegged Chirewa, went past Konan to the byline and pulled the ball back into a crowd. Hackney dinked a pass through for Barry, who took so long wrestling past a defender that Virgínia came out and took the ball off his feet. Grealish's shot from the edge of the area was beaten away. In first-half stoppage time Grealish went at the box again and was tripped. Bramall gave nothing. Keith Hackett, the former FIFA referee, told Goodison News later that "the Wolves player was guilty of a careless challenge on Jack Grealish, who may feel aggrieved that a penalty kick was not awarded." A minute later came Barry's chance. Mykolenko skewed a shot, Grealish gathered it behind him and Garner dinked a cross to the back post. Barry, unmarked, six yards out, headed it on target. Virgínia, in the Echo's words, "reacts brilliantly to push it over the bar. It is a great save, but Barry also should have scored." O'Brien ended the half by hammering a shot over from distance, the first of two the Echo's ratings would call "stupidly" taken on an otherwise decent night for him.

Barry summed himself up in the first minute of the second half. He took a poor touch on the edge of the box, then charged down Virgínia's clearance and saw it loop just over. Then Wolves had their moment. Neave's work on the left freed Armstrong, who broke clear at an angle, and Pickford saved with his legs. It was Wolves' first shot on target, and Joe Thomas's live blog said what everyone thought: "Armstrong should score." Barry came off just before the hour for Johnson, who went through the middle. Within minutes Dibling produced the pass of the night. He read Johnson's run from distance and slid a ball behind the back line. Johnson hit it on target and Virgínia saved. As Wolves countered, Dibling sprinted back and slid in on Chirewa on the edge of his own box. He won the ball cleanly and got a roar from the crowd and a shove of approval from O'Brien. The Echo built its match report around the tackle. Garner's shot was saved. Mykolenko's cross was too close to the keeper. Trippier came on. The forum had already asked whether a goalless cup tie goes straight to penalties. It does, and the prospect was starting to hang over the ground.

With thirteen minutes left Moyes made the change he had held back. Alcaraz and George came on for Hackney and Grealish, who left to the loudest applause of the night. George, on the left, went past two players inside a minute and crossed too close to Virgínia. Dibling held off Neave and shot over. In the eightieth minute Dibling stood up two Wolves players inside the box and poked the ball through to Alcaraz, who turned Toti with his first touch and bent his second low into the far corner. The live blog's next line was written in capitals: the leaders were standing. Wolves had ten minutes of pressure. The best of it was a sweet volley from Tommy Doyle that Pickford, in Thomas's account, "spilled" and pushed away. O'Brien gave away a free-kick in a good crossing position after Pickford had played him into trouble. Trippier's delivery was glanced behind and the corner came to nothing. Everton played keep-ball while the ground sang Spirit of the Blues, and Bramall ended it after three added minutes. The Echo's summary: "Went strong, kept going even as the goal didn't come but eventually got it."

Post-Match

Moyes did not take the press conference. Alan Irvine, his assistant, did, and none of the reports explained why. Irvine began with the scorer: "I'm absolutely thrilled for Charly. He trains well every day. He's massively disappointed whenever he's not in the team, as you would want players to be. And when he's had his chance then, tonight, he's got the goal and everybody is delighted for him." Alcaraz had been on the pitch for three minutes. It was, Sky noted, only his second goal for the club. The first came thirteen months ago in this competition.

Most of what Irvine said was about Dibling. It was the first time anyone at the club had spoken about the £35m signing at length since he arrived. "First of all, since he came back for pre-season, he's looked like he belongs here. He has looked more comfortable. He's a very quiet lad, Tyler, and it can sometimes take quiet lads, young lads, quite a bit of time to settle in, especially to a club like this with the expectations that are here, so that was probably difficult for him last year." He had spoken to him before kick-off: "I said to him before the game: 'You've been waiting patiently, or impatiently, you've now got your chance. You have been disappointed that you haven't been in the starting XI up until now, but now you must take that opportunity.' You don't get loads of opportunities. You have to grab them when you get them and make sure that the manager's got a tough decision to make for the next game, and he's done that, which I'm really pleased about." To Sky he added a qualification: "You saw a little moment of that acceleration he has got, and he doesn't show enough of those moments, and he needs to be doing more. I've spent a bit of time with Tyler and Tyrique this pre-season trying to get them to contribute more than previously, and there are certainly signs that is coming." On the opposition: "I don't know who thought it was going to be easy, but that certainly wasn't me… Wolves have got a very similar squad to the one that played in the Premier League last year."

Peixoto was content with everything but the score. "I think we did a good game; we competed against a strong Premier League team. I think today a lot of young players did a great job. I'm happy with the job today but not with the result." He then confirmed that Jiménez, who had played only to keep fit, "will stay injured for a few weeks" with a knee problem that "is not muscular… It is not bad, but he is a key player for us". He will miss Sunday's derby. "We don't control these kind of things. We have to stay strong."

The Echo's ratings, this week by Connor O'Neill, gave 7s to Maitland-Niles ("no doubt he is getting better with each passing game"), Dibling, Grealish ("Everton's best player in the first-half… Only criticism was he held on to the ball for too long at times") and Alcaraz, who "showed the sort of composure that his team-mates had been lacking". Everyone else got a 6, including Barry ("No surprise to see him replaced before the hour") and Dewsbury-Hall ("one of those games when very little came off for him"). O'Brien got a 5, for two shots from range and a late free-kick conceded. The forum would dispute that mark. The club's own player-of-the-match vote, announced ninety seconds after the final whistle, went to Dibling with almost sixty per cent. Joe Thomas wrote that "that announcement was met by a roar", and built his verdict on it: "Finally, there are hints the starlet might be on the cusp of a breakthrough after a miserable first season on Merseyside."

The Fans' Verdict

The People's Forum remembers Molineux last September as the night a season's cup hopes were thrown away in the third round. It spent the build-up asking for two things: a strong team, and Alcaraz. It got the first. The team sheet went up at half past five and the reaction was, by this board's standards, close to approval: "strong team and good options from the bench". One poster noted that two things could be true at once. Moyes was taking the competition seriously, and he still plainly does not rate Alcaraz. Someone had asked that morning for George to start instead of Johnson, on the grounds that with two Prime Ministers in the house "humiliation must be avoided". The board's largest thread of the week was about a VAR decision in the Manchester derby. Its most-read rumour was a Facebook post about a consortium fronted by a name familiar from Newcastle's sale. It got the pinch of salt everything on this subject now gets.

The game itself was watched with the usual mixture of hope and arithmetic. "Haven't had the ball in the first seven minutes." Praise for Dibling arrived early and did not stop. Virgínia's save from Barry got the tribute an ex-Everton keeper always gets from this board, respect with an edge of "of course it was him". By the seventieth minute the threads had turned to whether a draw goes straight to penalties, and to "walking football with Grealish". Then the goal. The board's best line of the night was about the manager rather than the scorer: look what happens when you bring that fella on, and look forward to the same again in three months. The grievance survived the win: Moyes's judgement of Alcaraz is the one call the board will not forgive him. Roughly four in five posts were satisfied. The rest were satisfied and pointed.

Where the board agreed: Dibling was its man of the match by a distance, and several posters nominated him before the club's vote confirmed it. One added that he was "hugely frustrating" as well as decisive. O'Brien was rated highly on the night, "very solid defensively" and better on the ball than his reputation. That is the reverse of the Echo's 5, and a split between the press box and the seats. Maitland-Niles is now filed as "more of a Sidibé". On this forum that is a compliment. Where it agreed less kindly: Barry. "No change in his first touch. Just not up to this level." The one-striker problem has stopped being a complaint about recruitment and become a complaint about him. The board's better posts noticed that this is unfair, that Barry is being asked to carry the club's entire summer, and made the complaint anyway. Grealish "isn't fit" and Dewsbury-Hall is "horribly out of form", both said without much heat. Nobody mentioned Graham or Olayiwola at all.

The ownership thread of the week was short and weary. Its two most-liked posts were the two most uncomfortable. One said that Evertonians "have the club they deserve. They'd rather grumble under their breath (or online) than do anything meaningful." Another, on the window: "grossly incompetent. Smallest squad of any Premier League team for the past decade." A third, on the temptation to give the owners time, drew the line this board draws whenever it hears the word patience: "People giving owners an easy ride and benefit of the doubt is why we had BK for 30 years." No statement came and no minutes appeared. The Times line about the multi-club solution drew demands for accountability, and one voice calling it a media pile-on, "probably deserved". The draw came half an hour after the whistle. The board greeted it the way it greets a home tie against a club it does not much like: relief that it was not away, a little glee that Newcastle hold the trophy Everton never have, and the immediate question of which Everton side would be picked for it. Ipswich on Saturday got a few ticketing posts and one prediction that Barry could score a hat-trick against Wolves and still be on the bench for it. The attendance, more than fifty thousand for a cup tie against a Championship side on a Wednesday, was noticed and approved of. That is as close as the forum gets to pride.

Themes Carried Forward

Ownership, still the top theme, and now a fortnight without a club voice. Nothing has been said on the record since the stake-sale story. A new strand arrived this week, relayed by a fan site from a Times journalist's social media: the multi-club "structural solution" is not what it was claimed to be. Dunne said on the record that Moyes has been let down. The chief executive's briefing minutes are the next thing to watch for, and the next club statement, whenever it comes, is still the test. The one credit the owners get this week, from Beesley, is for saying they want to win a cup. Everton are three rounds from Wembley.

The Moyes barometer: up a notch, with a caveat. He did what the Echo and the board asked. He went strong and won, and for the third time this season his substitutes changed the game, after Hackney and Maitland-Niles against United. The caveat is the substitute in question. Alcaraz scored in three minutes what Barry could not in fifty-eight, and the board expects to wait another three months for the same thing to happen again. Moyes was also absent from the press room afterwards, with no reason given. He will be there on Friday, and the questions will be about Branthwaite and England.

Dibling, at last a storyline rather than a fee. He made his first start of the season and was man of the match by a landslide. He had the assist, the pass of the night and the tackle of the night, and Irvine said out loud that he is a quiet lad who found last year difficult. Irvine's phrase, "make sure the manager's got a tough decision to make for the next game", sets the test. Does he start on Saturday against a Premier League side, or was this a cup night? George's twenty-minute cameo on the same flank showed the decision is real.

Branthwaite: rested, and waiting. He was on the bench for the first time this season and did not get on. The club now says three games a week is possible. Moyes says "we think we're over that now" in a tone that suggests he is not quite. Thomas Tuchel names his England squad on Friday morning, with Stones and Burn reported injured. The Echo called it "an anxious wait" and made the Evertonian case for him staying home to rest. Tarkowski's five attributes are on the record and will be quoted back at both men.

Pickford: a knock nobody will name. Beesley and Ball have written that he looks hurt. Travers warmed up for most of the second half at Tottenham, and a third goalkeeper is travelling. Pickford played the full ninety on Wednesday, made a match-saving stop from Armstrong and spilled a volley he would normally hold. Ball's demand that the club "put the fanbase in the picture" is fair and, like most requests for information this month, unanswered.

The one-striker autumn, week four. Barry had a six-yard header saved and did not take a good chance from Dibling. He came off before the hour with a 6 and the forum's blame. Johnson through the middle for half an hour looked quicker and no more likely to score. Alcaraz scored from the ten position. The Echo ran a readers' poll on Icardi, Martial and Sancho as free agents. That is the measure of the week. None of them is being signed. The record still says Barry gets into scoring positions at a rate only Haaland betters, and that he has scored four times this season.

Grealish: seventy-seven minutes, a 7, a booking and a penalty he did not get. He made his first start, on the left, was "Everton's best player in the first-half" and was applauded off. The forum reckons he is still short of fitness and holds the ball too long. Moyes's plan is now explicit: "use Jack and then adapt ourselves around Jack". Whether that survives a league Saturday three days after a cup Wednesday is the first test of it.

Right-back, and the centre-back question underneath it. Maitland-Niles got a 7 and is "getting better with each passing game". The position is answered for as long as he stays fit, and the Echo notes that his fitness is the whole risk. O'Brien finally got his ninety minutes in the middle, and the press and the crowd disagreed about it. Dunne said the same week that O'Brien's wish to be a centre-half is "probably normal" and that January is when he will decide whether he is getting closer to it. Röhl's injury is confirmed. Its length is not.

The youth spine, with two new names on the bench. Armstrong was rested for the first time after starting every game, with contract talks still reported and not begun. Hackney started, was busy and loose, and got a 6. Olayiwola, seventeen, made his first bench of the season alongside Graham, who has now sat on three without playing. Moyes has already said he does not see Graham as a striker. Dewsbury-Hall is in the leadership group, got a 6, and a second columnist noted the games are "bypassing him". Nørgaard has not played for seven weeks and will not before October.

The cup, which now has a shape. The fourth round is at home to Newcastle, the holders, in the last week of October, days before the two clubs meet in the league at St James' Park. In sixty-six years Everton have reached three semi-finals and lost two finals in the competition they have never won. Beesley's friend Dr France has told his doctor to keep him alive until he is eighty or Everton win it, and that deadline will do. Wolves, who did this to Everton last year, go into their derby without their best player.

The ledger. Everton are ninth after four rounds now the table is complete, with six points, unbeaten. The preview said eleventh, two places out. Hull, tipped in the preview for relegation, are fourth. Ipswich, Saturday's visitors, are tenth with two wins and two defeats. Tottenham are seventeenth with two points and no goals, went out of this cup at Liverpool on Tuesday, and De Zerbi has moved from "crisis" to "mental block". Manchester United lost at home to Brighton in the same round and their manager said "that's on me".

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