Matchday Two · Bournemouth (a) · D 1–1 · 29 August 2026

Tarkowski scores in the ninety-first minute to rescue a point at Bournemouth

Forest's £40m bid for Harrison Armstrong broke at breakfast and the away end spent the afternoon telling the board not to sell him.

Unashamedly written by a machine · The suffering is real

Photograph · Getty Images

Embed from Getty Images

Everton went to Bournemouth on the morning Forest bid £40m for Harrison Armstrong, and the away end started and ended the trip urging the board not to sell him. Armstrong played, in a first half Everton should have won, but Petrović saved everything and Alex Scott put Bournemouth ahead after Tarkowski lost Evanilson. The rain came, the second half went Bournemouth's way, and it took a corner nobody cleared in the ninety-first minute for Tarkowski to make amends with his first goal since taking the armband. Moyes, asked afterwards for a message to the board, said only that their manager is an Evertonian.

The Week Before

Every right-back on last week's list had gone somewhere else by Friday evening. Guela Doué, the first choice all summer, agreed to join Bayer Leverkusen for a fee reported around €35m and turned down Paris Saint-Germain to do it (Get French Football News, Foot Mercato). Daniel Muñoz, whom Moyes was said not quite to fancy, is joining Nottingham Forest for £22m to rejoin Oliver Glasner, Football Insider reported. A Trai Hume link on Thursday, a £20m move by the Mirror and ESPN's account, lasted until the forum remembered that Sunderland are in the Europa League and have no reason to sell. That left Kenny Tete of Fulham, 30. Fabrizio Romano reported on Friday teatime that personal terms were agreed and the "deal now depends on clubs". Tete turned Everton down a year ago. The Echo's Chris Beesley, writing after the match, put it more sharply than anyone: Everton's transfer committee has had eighteen months to fill the position with a specialist, and the Prime Minister, a Blue, has said publicly that they need to sign one. Röhl would play right-back for a fourth game running. The board, which has watched this film since the Coleman knees went, greeted Tete with a shrug. It was relieved that anything was moving, noted that he is "not even first choice at Fulham," and predicted he would pull a hamstring in his first game. A thread appeared titled Merlin Röhl is not a right back. "We don't field right backs," came the reply. "It's our thing."

That was the sideshow. At a quarter to nine on Friday morning David Ornstein of The Athletic reported that Forest were working on a deal for Harrison Armstrong at £40m plus a sell-on. Forest have £115m from selling Elliot Anderson to Manchester City. The BBC's Phil McNulty had the story within the hour and wrote that a sale "would send out worrying signals about the scale of TFG's ambitions," and that the handling of it "may be a defining moment for TFG and Moyes." Grand Old Team called it "a punch to the stomach" and "an act of self sabotage," and named Armstrong the best academy product since Rooney. Goodison News noted that he has been at the club since he was five. The forum went from its usual low simmer to something closer to grief inside two minutes. One post read simply "if the club accepts this, it's over". Then the board went looking for someone to blame. By late morning a thread had Armstrong pulled from the squad, on his way to the game and furious. None of it was true. He started and played eighty-six minutes. By the evening the same posters were reading "talks are progressing" and had settled on an explanation, in a thread that ran into Sunday morning. The explanation was a £40m payment to Burnley, said to be pending an appeal. That was why, the thread held, a club that had spent the summer promising a two-window rebuild was entertaining offers for its best kid. That is a fan theory, disputed even by the people advancing it. Nobody at the club has said anything to contradict it. Oliver Glasner told the Echo Forest could make up to three more signings before Tuesday. They have already taken Liam Delap.

Manchester City are looking at Ndiaye, the BBC reported on Thursday, and Everton would want about £70m to consider it. Other reports put it nearer £80m. The same report said Jack Grealish's preference, should he leave City, is a return to Everton. Kinnear told BBC Radio Merseyside that Grealish "has fallen in love with the right shade of blue." Enzo Maresca, asked about him, said: "In the next four, five days, we will see what happens." Moyes was as clear on Friday as he has been about anything this summer. "The first thing I would say is I'm certainly not encouraging a bid, that's for sure. I'm not encouraging that in a million years," he told the Echo. To the BBC: "we're certainly not in a hurry to sell our best players … we've had no contact from any club." On the timing, should a bid come: "I think it would be very difficult to get it reinvested if anything came in. We are getting into a really late period now." On Grealish: "He was brilliant for us, a great boy, but it's wrong for me to talk about him when he's at another club."

On Friday Moyes described a squad he does not think is big enough while Kinnear, his chief executive, described a European push. Kinnear had told the BBC last season was a "failure" and that "everybody is thinking about how we mount a challenge for Europe". Moyes, asked whether that was fair, said "there would be a lot of work to do to put us in that category," and on the window, "I think we need to do much more if possible." After Preston he had already told Sky "our squad's not big enough" and, asked whether the deals would get done, "I'm not sure we will but it's not for the want of trying." The Echo's Royal Blue column on Saturday morning said it was now "about action rather than intent." Team news came from the same press conference. Hackney had rolled his ankle against Palace and was "touch and go". Garner "is not fine because he's not played any games in pre-season … I still think he's off his levels". Nørgaard, who had told a fans' event on 17 August he was "getting very close," is "still not making great progress," and "not something where we're probably going to get him back quickly." Bournemouth had a new head coach in Marco Rose, Andoni Iraola having left in the summer. They had lost 2–1 at the Etihad the previous week. This was Rose's first home game, and he had an injury list.

The Match: Bournemouth 1–1 Everton

Moyes named the line-up every preview had predicted, to the man. He had few choices. Branthwaite and Garner came back in for Keane and Hackney. George kept his place after Dibling's flat night at Deepdale. Armstrong, whom the morning's rumour had on a motorway somewhere, started in the middle alongside Garner. Bournemouth were unchanged from the Etihad. The away end, the Echo reported, "started and ended" the trip by urging the board not to sell. The Press Association put the chant about "a riot" in its match report, and the BBC put it in its headline.

Everton were the better side for forty minutes and could have been three up. Dewsbury-Hall swung in a corner on ten minutes and Branthwaite met it at the near post. Đorđe Petrović flicked the header over with an outstretched arm, "spectacularly clawed away," in the Echo's ratings. On twenty George shot from the edge of the box and Petrović spilled it straight to Barry six yards out, then got up and across to smother the follow-up. Rayan, the Brazilian who was a nuisance all day, had already made Pickford save with his legs from a tight angle. Kluivert tested him from distance. Tavernier curled one over. It was the open, up-and-down game Rose said afterwards he had enjoyed coaching. On 41 minutes Rayan collected the ball on the edge of his own box and played it long to Evanilson. Tarkowski was chasing a ball out wide and lost the race, then lost Evanilson. Evanilson squared to Alex Scott, who took a touch to set himself and passed the ball into the far corner through a crowd. The Echo saw a touch off Mykolenko on the way. A minute later Branthwaite won the ball back, Dewsbury-Hall played Barry through, and Barry drove into the side netting. Five shots on target in a first half is the most Everton have managed in the opening forty-five of a league match since January 2025, Opta noted. They were a goal down anyway.

The rain arrived at half-time and the game turned. Barry had one more chance on 50 minutes, put through by Armstrong, and Petrović saved low. Dewsbury-Hall went down in the box after Hill stepped across him and got nothing from Kavanagh or from John Brooks in the VAR room. From there it was almost all Bournemouth. Garner, whose minutes are still being managed, was booked and then replaced just after the hour by Hackney, his ankle apparently fine. Johnson came on for George at the same time and Beto for Barry ten minutes later. Pickford saved sharply on 79 minutes. Evanilson's follow-up from close range was deflected behind, off Hackney by the Echo's reckoning. Mykolenko threw himself into two blocks in ten seconds, and the forum thought them worth a man-of-the-match vote on their own. Beto, given a chance by Dewsbury-Hall, hit a shot the home crowd cheered ironically. Alcaraz and Iroegbunam came on for the last four minutes and Everton won a corner on the left. Hackney's delivery was poor, straight at Tavernier, and Tavernier and Christie both went for it and neither cleared it. It fell to Tarkowski twelve yards out. He hit it low along the wet turf into the far corner and ran to the away end clutching the crest. Ninety-one minutes. It was his first goal since taking the armband from Coleman, and Bournemouth's fifth point dropped from a winning position in two games. When the whistle went Everton's right-back was Tim Iroegbunam. That, Beesley wrote in the Echo, "tells you all you need to know."

Post-Match

Moyes was as honest about the second half as the first. "I would say I am pleased we got the point. I was disappointed with the second-half performance. I was pleased with the first half, and I don't think we deserved, really, to be 1–0 down at half-time, but I thought we had done well enough, but we missed big opportunities to make a better chance or score a chance when we had it in the first half and I was hugely frustrated. I think the players were frustrated by it as well." To the Echo he offered a reason: "In the second half I just don't know if midweek kicked in. We played Wednesday, had to travel down, all the things that come from it. I don't want to make excuses for how we played in the second half, but I think it'd be wrong not to highlight it." To Match of the Day he was more forgiving: "I didn't think a goal was coming. We stuck at it, resilient, we were good away from last season so hopefully we can keep it going. We needed somebody to come up with something. We did some amazing blocks late in the game. Pleased with a point."

Then came the question everyone had come to ask. What did he know about Armstrong? "I know that there's been an offer. Apart from that, I don't really think there's much else I've got to say about it." Should it be accepted? "Well, it's not really a question for just now, it'll be a club decision." Pressed by the wider room, he gave the fullest answer of his second spell on how a manager sits with the people above him: "I think you always have to consider supporters; supporters aren't always wrong. But then there's also times where I've had people at clubs who are really powerful and make difficult decisions. I'd bring into that Bryan Gray, who was at Preston North End, and Sir Philip Carter, who was at Everton when I first came in. Not always decisions are popular, and sometimes they have to do it for different reasons. Managers have to make decisions on players sometimes and they feel like huge decisions. But there's sometimes bigger decisions to be made and the club will, I'm sure, make what they think is the right one." On the squad, whatever happens: "Without losing anybody, which we obviously don't want to do, we still need to add players to what we've got … even today, Hayden having his ankle, I just didn't want to risk him too soon. Jimmy, we've had to bring back quicker than we want with a hernia. And I think it showed today in Jimmy a little bit. So we're not that strong at the moment, squad-wise." Any incomings close? "No, not yet." The Echo's Joe Thomas asked whether he had a message for the supporters, or the board. "Well, if I would say something to them, I would say: their manager is an Evertonian."

Tarkowski described his goal to Final Score as a centre-half would: "I just hit the target, that's all I aim to do. The ball fell to me and it was fortunate. A few of their players got in each other's way. With a wet pitch like that, there's every chance it goes in." To the Echo, on Armstrong: "I've been on the end of transfer rumours and it's not easy, so for a kid of his age to go and perform the way he did today with all that speculation around him, fair play. He's a super talented kid, a massive character in our dressing room and we all love him. I'd want him here, of course." And, more carefully: "I'm not in charge of the finances, so it's not really my decision." Rose had been denied a first win on his home debut and was gracious and slightly baffled. "It's not even a set-piece, this goal. It was just slapstick: two players tried to bring the ball out of the danger zone and then the opponent got the ball. Nobody did it intentionally." And, a week into English football: "Like last week we would like to present our fans with a win but we will have to wait one more week."

The Fans' Verdict

The People's Forum is not a young board. A good proportion of its posters saw Kendall's team, most saw Walter Smith's, and all of them saw last season's seven-game collapse from the edge of the Champions League places to thirteenth. It reacts to news as people do who have been let down by the same club for a living. On the football, the board was of one mind and it was a generous one: a decent point at a decent side, chances created to win it, Petrović "having an absolute worldie," and a team that did not fold after conceding and kept going until something fell for it. One thread made that last point at length, as if it had surprised the person writing it. The old hands know what usually happens at the Vitality, and the Echo listed it: two Stanislas goals after the 87th minute in 2015, Coleman's stoppage-time own goal in 2024. The man-of-the-match vote went to Mykolenko and Pickford in roughly equal measure. The Echo's 8 for Tarkowski was treated as a reward for the goal rather than the ninety minutes. Barry got a 6 from Beesley and, live, a great deal of "FFS," but the post-match mood forgave him. Petrović was one reason. The other was that he keeps arriving in the right places. A striker who misses chances is at least a striker who gets them, and last season's did not. The counter-view, quoting Tim Sherwood, was that neither Barry nor Beto would have scored Tarkowski's goal. The board filed that under "things we already knew." Garner "looked well off the pace" and the board wanted him off before Moyes obliged. Hackney's cameo drew "looking more and more like an absolute steal". A thread titled Without Gueye, we are so much better drew plenty of agreement. Its best line described Gueye as a firefighter whose problem "was he was also the arsonist."

Everything else was Armstrong, and the cynicism came back. Nobody on the board was surprised that the club might sell. This is a support that has watched Rooney, Lukaku, Stones and Barkley go. The anger was at the familiarity of it, not at Forest. The line "we are absolutely done as a club if this happens" was written by someone who has typed a version of it before and expects to type it again. The new thing was where the sympathy went. The satisfaction barometer stood at 4.92 out of ten in pre-season, with no formal poll since. It moved this week for the first time, and it moved in Moyes's favour, because of a transfer he says is not his to make. A thread titled after his "I am an Evertonian" line ran to thirty replies reading it as Moyes distancing himself from a decision taken over his head. "Kinnear is toast" was the summary. A joke handle purporting to be Bill Kenwright posted "Are you sure? I got away with it for decades." The manner complaints have not gone away. A thread on his "strange" comments about Johnson ran before kick-off. But for one week the board and its manager were on the same side of an argument. The Richarlison thread showed the pragmatism that lives under the fume. The original post was furious at the idea of a loan return. A surprising number of replies were not, on the grounds that he is "better than Beto and better than Barry" for a year and that a loan is "fine for now." The board's best line of the week went to the Latin motto: "Nil Satis Nisi — oh, fuck it, that's good enough."

Themes Carried Forward

The Armstrong bid is the new theme and it swallows the others. It tests the owners' stated model of two windows, patience and a squad built around a young spine against a cheque that would be almost pure profit on an academy graduate. Moyes is on record that the decision is not his. Tarkowski is on record that he wants him kept. McNulty is on record that it "may be a defining moment for TFG and Moyes," and the away end is on record about what it thinks. The deadline now has one question at the top: is Armstrong still an Everton player on Wednesday morning? Everything below it is live: the £70m-to-£80m valuation on Ndiaye, Grealish's preference, the mechanics of a swap, Moyes's fear that a late sale could not be reinvested.

The right-back clock is about to stop on Kenny Tete. Doué and Muñoz went elsewhere in the space of a day. Hume was never really there. Röhl got a 6 from the Echo in his fourth game out of position and Iroegbunam finished the match there. The club's answer, if Romano is right, is Tete, 30, who said no twelve months ago. The striker ledger still reads Barry 4, Beto 0. This week's column is three big chances missed and a 6. Beto's cameo, mayhem in the box and one wild shot the home end enjoyed, did nothing to reopen the argument. Djú has gone quiet, and the deadline's second question is whether a second striker arrives at all. The youth spine is intact on the pitch and threatened off it. Armstrong got a 7 in both sets of ratings, George a lively 7 from the Echo, and Hackney, fit again, a 7 off the bench. Carried on: Garner's minutes being managed and the manager saying so, Johnson quiet, Nørgaard's setback now four weeks long, Iroegbunam ruled out until October by one preview and on the pitch on Saturday. Closed: the Preston loan on Armstrong was never verified and is now beside the point. The preview had Hull City going down. Hull City are second.

Two statistics for the Moyes side of the balance. Everton have avoided defeat in their first away league match of a season for the first time since 2021, having lost the previous four. They are unbeaten after two league games for the first time since 2021/22, when the pattern was the same: a home win, then a 2–2 draw away from home. That season ended with Frank Lampard and 39 points. This one is 4th after two games, on a Saturday in August, with the shape of the squad to be decided by Tuesday at eleven.

Sources & Caveats

Get each entry by email

One short message when a new entry is up, usually the night of the match or the morning after. Nothing else, ever. You confirm with one click, and every email carries an unsubscribe link.

Subscribe

All entries