Barry's Quickfire Brace Turns It Around as Everton Beat Coventry 3-1 on Moyes' Landmark Night

For 51 minutes, Hill Dickinson Stadium waited. Then, in the space of half an hour, Thierno Barry gave it a night to remember.

Everton had spent the first half labouring against Frank Lampard's Coventry, the side the former Everton manager has taken to the top flight, and the home crowd had little to cheer. Harrison Armstrong had spurned a golden chance in the 13th minute, failing to score his first goal for the club after Coventry's defence let a loose ball drop invitingly in the box. There was a penalty shout for the visitors too, when James Tarkowski appeared to pull Caleb Yirenkyi's hair inside the area, and the goalless first half ended with a low murmur rather than a roar.

It got worse before it got better. Seven minutes after the restart, Yann Gboho — making only his second league appearance for the Sky Blues — put Coventry ahead with his first goal for the club, a clever finish that silenced the home end and left Lampard's men dreaming of a famous win on his return to Merseyside.

The dream lasted four minutes.

Vitalii Mykolenko swung in a pinpoint cross from the left, and Barry rose to nod it into the bottom corner. Five minutes later the Frenchman struck again, bundling Tyrique George's centre over the line from barely two yards out in a scramble that had the visiting bench screaming for handball. Replays seemed, at first, to suggest the ball had brushed Barry's hand. Referee Stuart Attwell did not spot it, and VAR Timothy Wood saw no reason to send him to the monitor. "Okay, that's his side, that's definitely not hand," Wood was heard to say as the Premier League Match Centre confirmed the goal stood. Sky Sports had not shown every angle straight away, which only fed the argument, but nothing conclusive ever emerged.

By then the game had turned. Coventry, who had also felt they should have had a second penalty before VAR ruled Mykolenko's challenge had taken place outside the box, had nothing left. Nine minutes from time, Barry turned provider, sliding in Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall to blast past Carl Rushworth at his near post and seal a third straight win for the Toffees.

The numbers tell the story of Barry's transformation. The 24-year-old arrived from Villarreal with expectation and endured a poor debut campaign, leaving many to worry about Everton going into this season with him as David Moyes' only recognised centre-forward. He now has 10 goals in all competitions, plus three assists, with four of them coming in his last three outings. Only the form of the division's very best strikers stands comparison, and there is a growing feeling around Hill Dickinson that the club may have found its first cult hero of the new stadium era.

The night belonged to Moyes too. Victory came in his 592nd match in charge of Everton, equalling a club record, and it lifted his side above neighbours Liverpool into fifth place in the Premier League ahead of the rest of the weekend's fixtures. Coventry, for all their promise, stay 16th.

Lampard will take some comfort from the way his side competed for an hour, and from Gboho's breakthrough. But Friday night belonged to Barry, to a comeback, and to a manager whose name now sits alongside the greats in Everton's history books.