Thierno Barry heads Everton to 2-0 Premier League opening win over Crystal Palace
Thierno Barry scored the second goal in Everton's Premier League opening-game 2-0 win over Crystal Palace at Hill Dickinson Stadium on Saturday, and was substituted to applause with fewer than 15 minutes remaining.
The 23-year-old French forward, who signed from Villarreal for £27m last summer after an 11-goal La Liga campaign, had endured a difficult adaptation period at Goodison Park including a 14-game goal drought at the end of last year and did not score for Everton until December.
Early in the second half Iliman Ndiaye supplied a cross which Barry met with a header to double Everton's lead, a strike that all but ended any hope of a Palace comeback; the striker celebrated to cheers from the home support as the stadium announcer revealed he would be replaced by Beto.
Everton manager David Moyes praised Barry's goalscoring while tempering any overstatement of the display, saying: "Look, strikers will probably be judged on their goals, so he can walk away and be really happy with it," and, "I thought it would be wrong not to mention the quality of the cross from Ndiaye. Thierno getting in the right spot was huge and scoring with a header was really big for us because it was an important time in the game."
Moyes also highlighted areas for improvement in the forward's overall play, saying: "I need his build-up play to be better," and, "I need him to be able to retain the ball for us so we can play into him more often. I want him to get in the right spaces, which he did today for the cross. He had a couple where the ball got played to him and he didn't quite deal with it with his feet. Sometimes he is out linking up when he doesn't need to be linking up. I think there is a lot to his game. I said last year that when you're a young striker coming in, it's not always easy. I think he's come in with a really, really positive attitude this year. "
At the end of the campaign Barry's eight-goal tally came from an xG of 8.1 and he recorded a shot conversion rate of 21.1% - just shy of Erling Haaland's 21.4%. Six of Barry's nine Premier League goals for Everton have come at home.
By the midway point of last season some supporters' patience had grown thin, with the Frenchman having scored only once in 18 Premier League appearances, but after a year of adapting to life at Everton Barry now looks ready to establish himself as the team's main talisman up front.
Moyes closed by underlining Barry's attitude and suggested the striker has a point to prove, saying: "I think he's come bacj with something that has stirred him up a little bit more, as if he's got something to prove."
