There are afternoons when the football flows, afternoons when everything clicks and afternoons when a team simply has to find a way to win. For David Moyes and Everton, this was emphatically the latter.
Everton’s 1-0 victory over Ipswich Town at the Hill Dickinson Stadium will not be remembered as one of the great performances of the Moyes era, but it may eventually be regarded as another important little marker in the development of this team.
Thierno Barry’s 11th-minute goal proved enough to extend Everton’s unbeaten start to seven matches in all competitions and send them into the international break sitting fifth in the Premier League.
Considering everything that has surrounded Everton over recent weeks, that is some start.
Moyes is operating with a squad that remains noticeably short of numbers. Iliman Ndiaye and Beto have gone, Christian Norgaard and Merlin Rohl were unavailable, Harrison Armstrong had been an injury concern going into the game and there remains little room for further casualties.
Yet Everton continue to accumulate points.
There is an emerging resilience about them. They have not always played well this season, but they have become increasingly difficult to beat, and that quality was required against an Ipswich side considerably better than the description of “newly promoted opposition” might suggest.
Gary O’Neil has assembled an athletic, technically capable team who are comfortable with the ball and prepared to play. They came to Liverpool without any intention of spending 90 minutes defending their penalty area.
That made Moyes’ team selection particularly interesting.
Tyrique George, one of Everton’s most exciting attacking players in recent weeks, was left among the substitutes, while Jack Grealish was handed his first Premier League start of the season.
It proved an inspired selection.
Grealish was arguably Everton’s most accomplished footballer on the afternoon. There were no fireworks or desperate attempts to manufacture a highlights reel. Instead, this was a mature performance built around intelligence, awareness and an ability to manipulate the ball in tight areas.
Some of his passing was beautiful.
He repeatedly came inside from the left, took possession under pressure and changed the angle of Everton’s attacks. When Ipswich compressed the space around him, he was capable of playing through it. When Everton needed to slow the game down, he retained possession. When an opportunity emerged to accelerate it, he played forward.
It was precisely the sort of performance Moyes needed from an experienced player in a game that frequently threatened to become awkward.
Everton started brightly enough and Brennan Johnson should have done better with an early opportunity, but the breakthrough arrived after 11 minutes in unusual circumstances.
James Tarkowski drove an effort towards goal and Barry instinctively redirected it beyond Christian Walton with his chest.
It was not the prettiest goal Barry will ever score, but strikers rarely complain about aesthetics.
More importantly, it was another goal for a centre-forward who is having to carry an enormous amount of Everton’s attacking responsibility. With Beto gone and the squad thin, Moyes does not possess the luxury of rotating established Premier League strikers. Barry is the man and, increasingly, he is beginning to look comfortable with that responsibility.
The expectation was that the early goal might open the contest.
Instead, the first half became strangely subdued.
Everton had the better opportunities without ever completely controlling the match. Barry headed wide when presented with another good opening and Johnson found promising positions without supplying the required finish.
Ipswich, meanwhile, demonstrated exactly why Moyes had been wary of them beforehand.
They were tidy in possession, patient in their build-up and confident enough to play through Everton rather than simply knocking the ball forward. Sasa Lukic provided composure in midfield, Julio Enciso looked for spaces between Everton’s lines and Abdul Fatawu carried a genuine threat from the right.
There was also an excellent performance from Abdoul Ouattara.
Making his first Premier League start at right-back, the 20-year-old faced the considerable task of dealing with Grealish and emerged with great credit. He was quick, aggressive without being reckless and prepared to advance whenever Ipswich recovered possession.
It became an intriguing individual contest. Grealish was excellent, but Ouattara refused to disappear from the game.
Ipswich might easily have gone into half-time level. Emersonn headed narrowly wide from a Jack Clarke delivery, while Leif Davis was unable to make the most of another promising situation.
For all Everton’s possession and the quality Grealish occasionally injected into proceedings, the opening 45 minutes had been a drab affair.
The second half was completely different.
Everton came flying out.
The tempo increased immediately, the press became more aggressive and Ipswich suddenly found themselves having to defend considerably deeper.
This was the Everton supporters have seen in flashes this season: front-footed, energetic and capable of suffocating opponents when the midfield moves forward together.
Yet Ipswich provided an immediate warning of their own.
Enciso forced Jordan Pickford into action at his near post before Ouattara stepped forward and struck powerfully from distance, again requiring Everton’s goalkeeper to be alert.
Then came the afternoon’s major controversy.
Barry appeared to have scored his second with an outstanding header from Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall’s corner.
It was a proper centre-forward’s finish, glancing the ball beautifully beyond Walton and into the far corner.
The stadium celebrated. Barry celebrated. Everton appeared to have the cushion their second-half performance deserved.
VAR intervened.
Brennan Johnson was standing in an offside position close to Walton and referee Stuart Attwell was eventually sent to the monitor. The judgement was that Johnson had interfered with the goalkeeper’s ability to play the ball.
The goal was disallowed.
Technically, Johnson was unquestionably offside. Whether he had any meaningful impact upon Walton’s ability to save Barry’s header was an entirely different question.
The ball was travelling into the opposite side of the goal and Walton appeared to have virtually no chance of reaching it.
Moyes made precisely that distinction afterwards.
“Was he offside? Absolutely,” said the Everton manager. “Could the goalkeeper have saved the header? No, he couldn’t.”
That summed up the frustration.
Everton were not disputing Johnson’s position. They were questioning whether his position materially affected the outcome.
Fortunately for Moyes, it did not ultimately cost his side points.
Ipswich’s task became considerably more difficult in the 67th minute when Fatawu, already booked, went down looking for a foul as he moved beyond James Garner.
Attwell judged it simulation and produced a second yellow card.
Off went Fatawu.
Against ten men, Everton should have finished the game.
They created enough opportunities to do so.
Tyler Dibling came from the bench and immediately brought a different dimension to the attack, carrying the ball directly at defenders and producing one superb delivery which Dewsbury-Hall somehow headed wide.
Everton finished with 21 attempts but only two on target.
That statistic tells the story of the afternoon better than almost anything else.
The football between the penalty areas was often good. The positions Everton created were frequently excellent. The finishing was not.
And because the second goal never arrived, Ipswich remained alive.
That made the closing stages unnecessarily uncomfortable. Even with ten men, O’Neil’s side continued trying to play and Everton were forced to defend properly until the end.
Jarrad Branthwaite again provided calmness at the heart of the defence, while Pickford preserved another clean sheet.
Moyes was measured afterwards.
“Hard to assess,” he said. “We had good moments and not-so-good moments. We had good chances which we didn’t take, but Ipswich have done well and it was never going to be easy. Really pleased to get the three points.”
That assessment felt about right.
This was not Everton at their most fluent.
It was not the slick football seen at Preston, nor the energy and attacking freedom they have displayed in other games.
But good seasons are not built exclusively upon good performances.
Sometimes they are built on Saturdays when the football is imperfect, the opposition is better than expected, VAR removes what appears a perfectly legitimate second goal and the squad is stretched.
You win anyway.
Everton have done plenty of that under Moyes over the years.
The difference this time is that there are signs of something slightly more adventurous developing underneath the pragmatism.
Grealish added intelligence. Barry scored again. Dibling looked dangerous from the bench. George was not even required. Branthwaite looked assured. Pickford delivered when required.
There are questions, particularly over Everton’s finishing and the depth available to Moyes, but seven games unbeaten and fifth place represents an excellent return from a difficult opening period.
Everton were not dazzling against Ipswich.
They did something potentially more valuable.
They found a way to win.
