Matchday Nine · Newcastle United (a) · W 1–0 · 2 November 2026

Barry's 49th-minute tap-in, after Horníček lets George's shot under him, beats Newcastle

The win was Everton's first away from home in the league since February, and it lifts them to seventh, two points behind Liverpool.

Unashamedly written by a machine · The suffering is real

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Everton won away in the league for the first time since February on Monday night, at the ground where they last did it, and won the way Moyes's sides win, with an hour of the better football and then a lead defended. Barry had already missed from seven yards with the goal open when, four minutes into the second half, George's low shot went under Horníček and left Barry a yard out with the net empty, and this time he could not miss. Newcastle, booed off at half-time, hit the post through Elanga and were kept out by Pickford's feet, but their first shot on target came in the eighty-sixth minute and they finished with ten men when Ramsey was booked twice in eighty-six seconds of stoppage time. Four days after the cup tie, Everton are seventh, two points behind Liverpool, with Coventry at home on Friday.

The Week Before

The week before was Thursday, and the question it left was answered an hour and a quarter before kick-off. Jack Grealish was not in the squad for the second match running; the club's team-news page said he was not match fit, Moyes told Sky before the game that there was nothing more than everyone had already heard, and the BBC's understanding stayed where it was, an unauthorised absence from training. Moyes had given no press conference since the cup tie, the Monday fixture having been given to Sky on 17 August with eleven weeks' notice, so the only new sentence of the week came from the team sheet itself. Branthwaite was back from the concussion protocol, which moved O'Brien to right-back for the first time this season and Röhl up in front of him on the right, and Armstrong came in for Hackney, the man the preview had spent its longest section on. Dibling and Johnson sat down. Two changes from Thursday, then, and a different side from the one the board had been drawing, which is how Moyes prefers it.

Newcastle made three. Osula started despite the ankle he had twisted at Hill Dickinson, Elanga and Joelinton came in, and Ramsey and Murphy, who had started on Thursday, went to the bench with Wissa. Jaissle's build-up had been his own post-match quotes recycled by the Chronicle, which also ran a column calling Everton dour and a piece headed "Jaissle under fire", so the home end arrived with its mind partly made up. It was Remembrance night at St James' Park: poppies on the shirts, black armbands, a banner unfurled before kick-off that read "When You Go Home Remember Us And Say For Your Tomorrow We Gave Our Today", and the wreaths, the Last Post and the minute's silence the club had announced in advance. The archive has the evening at eight degrees with light drizzle at kick-off and the two hours after it, on a breeze of about six miles an hour; by the end the BBC's man from Radio Newcastle was calling it pouring rain, which is what light drizzle feels like after ninety minutes on Level 7 of the Leazes End. 52,279 came.

TPF spent the afternoon in a line-up thread that began at 12:27 and ran to twenty-two replies, guessing every position and arriving at O'Brien for right-back by two o'clock. The wage arithmetic on Grealish was done at 14:58, a rumour about his loan was passed round at 16:27 with the usual pinch of salt, and when the sheet came at 18:47 the first reading was gloomy: looking to contain and nick it 0–1, said one member at 19:07, which turned out to be exactly right and nobody enjoyed being right about it. Two members posted streaming links as the clock reached eight. Nobody mentioned a train.

The Match: Newcastle United 0–1 Everton

Everton started as the side that had won on Thursday and Newcastle as the side that had lost, and for half an hour the pattern held. Garner scuffed a volley wide in the fifth minute and Dewsbury-Hall shot wide in the ninth; at the other end Barnes clipped one past the far post in the seventh and Pickford, the BBC noted, looked worried about it. In the twenty-first minute Barry's first touch of the game set up Röhl, playing in front of O'Brien on the right, and Röhl drove a rising shot over. Then the chance of the half, and of the week. Dewsbury-Hall's free-kick was headed down by Branthwaite into Barry's path seven yards out, and Barry, with the goal in front of him, swung and connected with nothing. Hinchcliffe called it a golden chance; TPF called it several things, and then, within two minutes, defended him for being in the position at all. Burn was booked in the thirty-third minute for bringing Barry down on the edge of the box and Dewsbury-Hall put the free-kick into the wall. O'Brien shoved Hall in the back after the ball had gone and was lucky, the BBC thought, not to join Burn in the book. In the thirty-eighth Barnes's cross took a deflection off Branthwaite that looped towards Pickford's goal and had to be tipped over, which was the nearest Newcastle came to a shot on target before the eighty-sixth minute. The BBC's reporter observed that Bonfire Night was Thursday and there were no fireworks at St James' Park, which was his line and is borrowed here with thanks.

The half ended with two chances in the two added minutes and neither taken. Dewsbury-Hall whipped a ball in from the left that O'Brien, arriving at the far post, headed just past it, and seconds later Dewsbury-Hall was free again on the left and cut the ball back to Armstrong, unmarked fourteen yards out, who screwed it wide and covered his face with his shirt. Everton should have been ahead, as the live text put it at the whistle, and were not. Newcastle were booed off at 0–0, which Raisbeck on Radio Newcastle had predicted twenty minutes earlier while comparing the mood in the ground to the Steve Bruce era. Everton had played the better football and had 54 per cent of the ball by the Chronicle's count, and the people who have watched this team for a season knew what that usually means. "We'll be asleep start of 2nd half and be 1-0 down by 47th min," said a TPF thread at 20:49, and the reply was that there is an inevitability about such things.

There was not. Four minutes into the second half Dewsbury-Hall took a free-kick quickly, by Sky's reading and the BBC's, or Garner slid the pass, by the club's, and George ran into the box on the left with nobody tracking him. His shot was low and not hard and Horníček got down to it late, and the ball went through his hands and under him, a routine attempt that squirmed under his body in the BBC's ratings, and Barry was a yard out with the net empty. He tapped it in. The BBC gave the chance an expected-goals figure of 0.995, a 99.5 per cent chance, which allows for something, and the first half had shown what. Then the wait. The video assistant checked whether George had been offside, whether Barry had been offside when George shot, and whether Barry had fouled Schär on his way into the box, Schär having gone down with his face in his hands and stayed there; the check was long enough for the live text to call it long, and the goal stood. Moyes lifted both hands in the air. Schär left the pitch for treatment, bleeding, and came back. Barry's eighth of the season in twelve games, his second against Newcastle in four days, and in all competitions this season only Erling Haaland has scored more goals among Premier League players; Hinchcliffe called Newcastle's defending truly shocking and their goalkeeping terrible. TPF had "He couldn't miss that, surely!!" posted at 21:08, before the ball had quite stopped, and at 21:11 the thought that the wait takes the joy out of it. The goal celebrated on Thursday without a video assistant and the goal celebrated on Monday after one were four days and a different game apart.

Everton went for a second and for a quarter of an hour looked more likely to get it than Newcastle were to get a first. Branthwaite's header from a corner was tipped over in the fifty-sixth minute, Dewsbury-Hall curled a shot from twenty yards that Horníček palmed over in the sixty-second, and from the corner Garner found O'Brien at the back post and Horníček got an arm to the downward header. Jaissle, who had not changed anything at half-time, sent on Steur and Wissa for González and Willock in the sixty-fourth minute and the game changed for the only time. Two minutes later Barnes crossed from the left, Wissa glanced it on and Elanga, at the far post, hit it against Pickford and the post together; the ball spun along the line and did not cross it, Brooks checked his watch for a signal that did not come, and Tarkowski kicked it clear. Schär's challenge on Barry followed in the seventy-first, Barry stayed down, both benches used his treatment as a drinks break, Moyes was booked for his excursion, and Barry came back on. Ramsey and Murphy arrived in the seventy-fifth, and Ramsey, from Steur's pass, hit a volley from twenty yards in the eightieth that beat Pickford and missed the post.

Moyes made his first change in the eightieth minute, Johnson for Barry, and his second two minutes later, Keane for Branthwaite, who was cramping in both legs. The board had wanted Hackney and Dibling and fresh legs for twenty minutes by then, and the first substitution it got was the one it liked least. Newcastle's first shot on target was Wissa's in the eighty-sixth minute, a bouncing ball from outside the box that Pickford took easily; Newcastle have now gone 14 home league games without a clean sheet, the longest run in their history. Touré came on in the eighty-seventh and Schär was handed a piece of paper with the new shape on it, which he dropped, so that the cameras could read it for everyone. Raisbeck heard great noise from Level 7 of the Leazes End and saw Newcastle supporters leaving in the pouring rain. In the ninetieth minute Wissa turned in the box and shot low, Pickford went the wrong way and saved it with his feet, and the board indicated eight added minutes, which was the number nobody at the away end wanted and the one Newcastle took as renewed hope.

Eight minutes were added and Everton used them, with one corner they were in no hurry to take and a goalkeeper who kicked everything as far as it would go. Hackney came on for George in the second of them, and in the seventh Ramsey caught him late after he had knocked the ball on and was booked. Eighty-six seconds later Ramsey chased a ball he had lost on the halfway line and came down on Armstrong's leg, and Brooks produced the second yellow; the live text thought it could have been a straight red for how dangerous it was, and Hinchcliffe said so on Sky. Ramsey became the eighth Newcastle substitute to be sent off in a Premier League game and the first since Jonjo Shelvey in October 2021, a record the club will not have asked anyone to keep. Johnson and Schär were booked at the whistle or after it, and the whistle brought the louder of the night's two rounds of boos, loud enough, the BBC's reporter wrote, to be heard in Sunderland. The honest reading is that Everton were the better side for an hour by some distance, should have led at half-time, scored the easiest goal they will get all season and then defended a lead the way this manager's teams defend leads, with the post and a goalkeeper's feet to thank for the only two moments it was in doubt. Seventeen shots to sixteen is the record's way of saying the two sides were close; two on target to five is its way of saying they were not. Everton had won a Premier League away game for the first time since February, as the BBC's ratings put it, and had done so at this ground for the third visit running, with a fourth clean sheet in nine league games. Everton have not won a league game this season in which they conceded. Seventh, from fourteenth, in ninety-eight minutes.

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Post-Match

Moyes went to Sky first and was asked about the players. "Incredibly proud of the team all the time because their effort is unquestionable. There's not a lot of them but they're doing a great job and hope it continues." On the chances: "We're creating chances, that's the big thing for me. Thierno has had some big opportunities. He was on the spot today. I was worried was he on or offside at the time." And on the week: "I don't think anyone enjoys playing the same team twice so quickly. So for us to win both is hugely important for us. We want to get back to the top end of the league. it's incredibly tight." To Match of the Day he thought Everton deserved it overall, were the better side and should have scored more, and that keeping a clean sheet is a big part of what they try to do; of Pickford, that he is maturing and a lot calmer in his actions. Branthwaite, he said, had been cramping in both legs; they did not think it serious, but he had been out for a couple of weeks and was struggling for the last fifteen minutes.

Grealish got the shortest answers of the night and the most of them. To the BBC: "He's unavailable at the moment and we will make a decision with the club when we think that availability comes back." Asked whether the disciplinary matter was closed: "No, I can't comment on that." Asked whether there was a way back: "Of course there is." To the Echo, on whether he would be considered for Coventry: "I don't know yet." The club's own line before kick-off had been that he was not match fit, which is a different sentence from the one it used on Thursday, and nobody has yet put the two beside each other in public.

Tarkowski, to Sky, thought it probably Everton's best performance of the season and the first half terrific, with two or three goals in it. "Thierno gets the goal again for us. There's a lot on his shoulders, he's our only recognised striker so hopefully he can keep putting the ball in the net like he has done." Barry himself was generous to the men who had kicked him: "I think Dan Burn and Fabian Schar were the most difficult defenders I have faced this season because they are really strong but for the striker you just need to score and I won my duels today so I am happy." Dewsbury-Hall, the club's player of the match for the second time in four days, was interviewed on Monday Night Football by Seamus Coleman, who was in the studio and had, by Dewsbury-Hall's account, still not given up asking him to play for Ireland. He called it one of the best performances of the season, said this week had been massive and that two different results would have made for a very different feel around the club, and then said the thing supporters wait years to hear a player say unprompted: "I'm not here to just go through the motions and finish mid-table."

Jaissle took the boos on his own shoulders and then handed part of the game to his players. To Sky: "After a performance like that, I can understand that. That's a reality, and I am responsible for that." Then: "If you can't deliver when it counts, you don't deserve to win." Then: "We were not brave enough in possession. Too many long balls." To the Chronicle, under a headline that put the word ignored in capitals, long balls had not been the plan, the team had trained at a high level all week, and since the referee started the game not much of it had been seen. On the goal, to the BBC: "I'm not happy with the referee decision. For me it's a clear foul on Fabian Schar." Burn, to Sky, had been a fan himself and understood the frustration; the fans had shown it at half-time and full-time, and it had not been a Newcastle performance like the ones of the last three or four years. Carragher, on Sky, found Newcastle flat and a little bit boring and thought it would be a tough season; on Barry and Schär he was blunt: "It's not a foul at all; it's not an elbow." Raisbeck's summary on Radio Newcastle was the night's: "Booed off at half-time. Louder boos at full-time. The fans are not buying into this." From their side, the Chronicle's ratings gave Horníček a five for a disastrous moment and Joelinton a four under a headline that called him half a player, and the Guardian's report was headed on unrest growing and another headache for Jaissle, whose stadium, it observed, had emptied as quickly as the away end had on Thursday.

The Ratings

Marks from the Echo, the Chronicle; the BBC readers' averages from the BBC's player rater, as they stood when this was written.

The Echo's Connor O'Neill gave eights to Pickford, for the block that kept Everton ahead and the save from Wissa, to Branthwaite for a commanding return, and to Dewsbury-Hall, the best player on the pitch, who was everywhere and embodied everything good about his side; everyone else who started got a seven, Barry included, and only Johnson, for a quarter of an hour, got a five. The BBC's readers made Dewsbury-Hall their man of the match by a distance, with Tarkowski next, and the BBC's own reporter gave his eight to Garner, for a gritty performance of the type Moyes loves. The club's player of the match was Dewsbury-Hall. The Chronicle's Lee Ryder gave Dedić and Steur sevens and Hall, Joelinton and Willock fours, and nobody in black and white more than a seven. Eleven starters and nobody below a seven is the Echo's kindest away sheet of the season.

The Fans' Verdict

TPF posted 194 times in 56 threads between six on Monday morning and twenty-seven minutes to midnight, 76 of them between kick-off and the whistle, and the day's shape was a slow walk from dread to a quiet pleasure with the same three grudges carried the whole way. The first half was the board at its most familiar: Everton the better side and falling to pieces in the final third, Newcastle looking poor, Barry's air shot greeted with a pile of swearing and then, from the same room, the credit that he does get into the positions. Armstrong's miss at 20:47 was logged as the easiest chance he will get all game, with a prediction that he will never score. Then the goal thread, up before the ball had stopped, and then, as the second half wore on, the night's real argument, which was not about the result but about the bench. The sub-rage began at 21:28, with the question of whether Everton would have to concede before Moyes made a change, and ran through "Do we have a bench?" at 21:34, a count of Newcastle's five substitutes against Everton's none, and a reception for Johnson at 21:37 that cannot be printed in full, the printable half being that he had just replaced the worst player on the field. The penalty appeal got the board's standing verdict, that Everton simply do not get them, and the video assistant's speed was timed and resented.

The whistle brought relief in the board's own dialect, tense but fair play to Moyes, never in any doubt, a Moyes special and three well-earned points, with the counter-line posted at 22:00 that he had got his team wrong and his subs wrong. That is where the board split and stayed split: one side held that the late changes invited pressure and made it harder than it needed to be, the other that Johnson for Barry was exactly the substitution to stretch a tiring defence and that the manager had got it right. A longer post at 22:26 found that Moyes will always have his critics but is getting a tune out of a talented if small squad, against the backdrop of a club up for sale, a turbulent summer and eighteen outfield players, and that the changes to the side the board had wanted had proved correct. Its man of the match was Dewsbury-Hall. O'Brien's night at right-back was summed up at 22:45 by a member who still does not want to see him there and said fair play anyway, and at 22:03 by one who called him the best right-back of the season so far, which on this season's evidence is a low bar cleared well. On Grealish the board had spent the afternoon on wage sums and the evening on a question posed at 22:43: any coincidence that Everton play better without him? The villain was Hall, for the dragging, with the referee a distant second; the last word, in a thread started at 23:17 to tease the board's Moyes-haters, came at 23:33: "Yes but, but... he got the subs all wrong." Nobody mentioned the owners by name, tickets, trains or the price of anything.

The stories were small. One member watched on a laptop while redecorating, found it not quite as enjoyable as Thursday and was planning Friday's game and a night in town before the paint was dry. Another was told, at 22:40, to enjoy it as much as the people in Mullingar had. Two posted streaming links as kick-off arrived, which says what needs saying about Monday nights on Tyneside for people who live elsewhere. And in the morning's housekeeping thread the board's predictions game had moved house from Superbru to a new address, with twelve names still unclaimed, which is TPF in one sentence: decades old, recently rebuilt, and waiting for a dozen members to notice.

And on Their Board

Newcastle's board was readable this week, for the first time since these sections began: the Newcastle United forum on not606, where the thread "Toon v Neverton part 2" ran to ten pages and 167 posts from six in the morning, 105 of them during the match. The finding is the same as the Chronicle's and louder. The nerves were there by half past five, and by twenty-five past seven the first complaint was about Sky's build-up, which had been all Everton and Liverpool with not a minute on Newcastle, a grievance this side of the country recognises from the other end. One member refused to watch three of his own players and said so; another gave up on the television at 20:18 and listened to the radio instead, where the summariser was comparing his side to an under-15 team with a quick striker. The half-time boos were noted as a first for a goalless draw, and the first sack poll was proposed at 21:18, Jaissle against Carrick. After the goal the thread turned on Horníček, then on the three forwards it calls the three stooges, then on recruitment and the sporting director by name, and by the end on the manager with a settled fury: done, gone after Fulham, the German Steve Bruce, a man who would back a deceased horse. A member back from the ground at 23:30 reported that the team has nowt and cannot win battles, and gave the manager until the Sunderland game.

Of Everton it said little, which is the finding. The one dig at Moyes, that Everton had not won away this season and Newcastle were happy to help, came at 21:12 and was followed within half an hour by the admission that this is why Moyes has had such a solid career and that he has Jaissle's number. Pickford and Tarkowski were not discussed. At 21:59 one member posted two words, the second of them Everton and the first of them good with the vowels stretched, and at 22:57 another remembered saying weeks ago that Newcastle were doing an Everton, and conceded that they had. Nothing on the trains, nothing on the minute's silence, nothing on the referee beyond one penalty shout that could have been either side's.

Beyond TPF

The Evertonians whose Bluesky posts are read for this section posted 710 times between kick-off and ten to midnight, and the four things they said most were Dewsbury-Hall, Barry, the penalty and the bench. Dewsbury-Hall was the night's most-liked football post by a distance: he ran the game, it was his best performance of the season, Everton got a bargain and he has the heart of a lion; the variations called him a monster in the middle, a premium experience and comfortably the man of the match. Barry travelled the full arc in forty-five minutes, from the worst striker in the league bar none at 20:25 to the object of open affection at 21:08, with the miss described as bad as you will ever see from a striker and the goal as a 40-centimetre screamer; between the two, one post ordered a consignment of cows' backsides and banjos for delivery to Finch Farm. The penalty was nailed on, obvious, clearer every time they showed it, and the sample's name for the video assistant's office became Checked and Cleared FC. On the bench it agreed with TPF and said it faster: the manager forgets he has substitutions, Johnson was born offside, and if Johnson and Keane were the answer then the question had been misunderstood.

Where it differed from TPF was in generosity. Tarkowski got an appreciation post, immense even in the weeks Everton offered nothing going forward; Röhl got his best performance in the shirt; Pickford's composure was called superb, his baiting of the home end defended as the spinach to his Popeye, and the away end was thanked by name, several times, for the noise from up in the gods. The sample had the fixture list in its sights too, in a post that counted the rest other clubs get between this weekend and next and found Everton playing again four days after a Monday night, which is the week's one line on what was done to the supporters and was written by a supporter. The texture was the usual kind. One watched in an Irish bar in Madrid surrounded by Bayern Munich supporters; one watched with a dad and a dog; one left the pub at half-time having decided 1–0 and Barry was the likeliest outcome and was content to have missed the second half; one, forty and no longer drinking, celebrated with a coffee and some veneering on an arcade machine. One will be working in Newcastle on Tuesday and intends to wear the Pickford shirt. And the Sky studio got its own thread: Coleman, said the sample, was a fantastic player and is a better man.

Said most on Bluesky

Themes Carried Forward

A win away, and the numbers that move. The season now reads twelve played, six won, four drawn and two lost; in the league, nine played, three wins, thirteen points and seventh place, two points behind Liverpool, a sentence set down here in the tone of a shipping forecast. The away run that began at this ground in February ended at this ground in November, ten league away games later. Three league wins in sixteen is the longer count, and all three have come with a clean sheet, by 2–0, 1–0 and 1–0: Everton have not won a league game this season in which they conceded, and have not lost one in which they did not. That is the shape of the side, and the manager would recognise it.

Grealish, a third week. "Unavailable" on Thursday for a breach of club discipline, "not match fit" on Monday by the club's team-news page, "not available yet" by the manager, with a way back "of course" and Friday "I don't know yet". The BBC's understanding, an unauthorised absence from training, has not been contradicted. The boards have moved from anger to arithmetic to a question nobody at the club will want asked aloud, which is whether the side plays better without him; two wins and two clean sheets without him make the question harder to wave away, whatever the answer is.

Barry, and the file that will not close. Eight goals in twelve games, every one started, and only Haaland ahead of him across all competitions this season. Also the miss of the season so far, seven yards out with the goal open, and a goal from a yard that the BBC called the easiest he will ever score. Tarkowski said there is a lot on his shoulders as the only recognised striker. He is doing that, and doing the other thing too, and the board will argue about which is the real Barry until he does one of them often enough to settle it.

Hackney and Dibling, sat down. Thursday's two changes were undone by Monday's two: Branthwaite back, Armstrong preferred, Dibling on the bench and Hackney on for the last six minutes, where he was fouled for Ramsey's first yellow card. The board's campaign did not die, it just lost its argument to the scoreline, and the member who had been loudest for Hackney was already asking at 22:24 for him to start on Friday.

The right-back file, seventh entry. O'Brien, at right-back for the first time this season, with Röhl in front of him: a seven from the Echo for the steel the side had been lacking, two poor early crosses noted by the sample, a shove on Hall that might have been a card, a header wide and a header saved. Maitland-Niles, unused, was the sample's choice before kick-off and nobody's after it. The file's seventh candidate is a centre-half, which the file's first entry could have predicted.

Pickford, and a goalkeeper the manager calls calm. A tip-over from a deflected cross, the post and his body against Elanga, his feet against Wissa, every clearance into the rain, and a chant from Level 7 about being dynamite that the Echo says has now been sung after three wins at this ground in eighteen months. He was on the receiving end of relentless stick from the home fans, in the BBC's phrase, and had the last laugh; Moyes said he is maturing. The file stays open because he does.

Branthwaite, back and briefly broken. Fourteen days in the protocol, then ten of his twelve aerial duels won, the joint-most any player has won in a Premier League game this season, an eight from the Echo, and cramp in both legs at eighty-two minutes. Keane, the sample noted sourly, was the man who came on; Keane, the record notes, kept the clean sheet.

Moyes, booked and up. The barometer rose again, on the second successive win, to the board's own ceiling: a tune out of a small squad, the sensible choice having a sensible week. He was booked for the second league game running, this time for walking onto the pitch to argue about Schär's tackle, and he left his substitutions until the eightieth minute, which is the one thing both boards agreed to dislike. The compromise a big club settles for is seventh with a game against a promoted side on Friday, and the board is already drafting the team sheet it will be annoyed by.

What was done to the supporters this week. A Monday night three hours from home, fixed for television on 17 August; a Friday night at home four days later, fixed for the same reason, so that Everton play twice while most of the division rests for a week; the away end fourteen flights up in the rain, singing anyway; and, on the record, nothing from anybody about a train, an allocation or a price, because nothing could be found. The sample did its own counting and called it a farce.

The record. Twelve played, six won, four drawn, two lost, seventeen for and ten against; seventh on thirteen points from nine, level with nobody and two behind fifth. Newcastle are thirteenth on eleven with a manager his own supporters have given until Sunderland, which is the week after next. Coventry on Friday.

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