Everton beat Coventry 3-1 and go fifth: Barry scores twice in five minutes after Gboho puts Coventry ahead

Everton beat Coventry City 3-1 at the Hill Dickinson Stadium on Friday 6 November, in David Moyes’s 592nd game as Everton manager, the number that draws him level with Harry Catterick’s club record. Coventry led after 52 minutes through Yann Gboho. Thierno Barry scored twice in five minutes to turn the game round, and Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall added the third nine minutes from time. Everton go fifth in the Premier League before the weekend’s other games, with three wins in a row.

How it happened

Moyes made one change from Monday’s 1-0 win at Newcastle: Tyler Dibling came in on the right wing, Merlin Röhl moved to right-back and Jake O’Brien dropped to the bench. The first half had no goals. Everton’s club report says Barry could not get a clean shot after an early one-two between Tyrique George and Dewsbury-Hall, and that the Coventry goalkeeper Carl Rushworth then stopped a drive from Vitalii Mykolenko. Coventry finished the half the stronger side. Jordan Pickford saved from Tatsuhiro Sakamoto with his legs and Jack Rudoni’s shot went inches past the left-hand post. The club’s own report says Everton were fortunate not to be behind at half-time.

Coventry scored seven minutes after the restart. Gboho played a one-two with Sakamoto and, as Everton’s report describes it, knocked a close-range shot through Jarrad Branthwaite’s legs and past Pickford. According to ESPN, which carries the Press Association’s account, it was Gboho’s first goal for Coventry in only his second league appearance for them.

Everton were level four minutes later. Mykolenko crossed from the left and Barry headed it into the bottom corner in the 56th minute. In the 61st minute George floated a ball from the left to the back post and Barry, as the club’s report puts it, squeezed it over the line off his midriff, with Rushworth unable to keep it out. By the club’s count Barry now has 10 goals this season; ESPN says that is two more than he scored in the whole of last season, and that he has scored in three league games in a row.

The third came in the 81st minute. Barry turned and threaded a through ball down the left channel, and Dewsbury-Hall hit a hard, angled finish past Rushworth at his near post. Neither the club’s report nor ESPN’s mentions a booking or a sending-off. ESPN reports two Coventry penalty appeals: a first-half tug by James Tarkowski on Caleb Yirenkyi’s hair, which it says was so slight that the video assistant referee (VAR, the official who reviews key decisions on a screen) took no action, and a Mykolenko challenge on Taiwo Awoniyi that the officials checked and judged fractionally outside the area.

What it changes

Everton have 16 points from ten games: four wins, four draws and two defeats. That puts them fifth, level on points with Chelsea in fourth, who have played a game fewer and have the better goal difference, and one point above Liverpool, who have also played nine. The clubs around them all play over the weekend, so the position may not last: Chelsea go to Sunderland and Liverpool go to Crystal Palace, both on Sunday at 15:00 CET. Everton’s three wins in a row are the League Cup win over Newcastle, Monday’s league win at Newcastle and this one.

Coventry, newly promoted, stay 16th on nine points from ten games: three wins, seven defeats and no draw yet. They are two points above Crystal Palace in 18th, the first of the three relegation places, and two above Manchester United in 17th, who have a game in hand.

The international break follows. Everton’s club site says Pickford, Branthwaite and James Garner were named on Friday in the England squad for the matches against Croatia, and calls Dewsbury-Hall unlucky to miss out. Everton’s next league game, at Brentford after the break, would be Moyes’s 593rd and the record on its own.

What the market said

A betting price is a crowd’s opinion written as a number, and dividing 1 by the price gives a rough chance. The last price BettingBeast’s feed captured before kick-off, at 20:22 CET, made Everton the favourite at 1.72, about a 58% chance. The draw was 4.15, about 24%, and Coventry 5.50, about 18%. Everton, the favourite, won. The price barely moved all day: when the feed first carried the game at 09:23 CET Everton were 1.75, about a 57% chance, and Coventry 5.32. The goals line was 2.5, with over at 1.82 and under at 2.27 at the close, and the game had four goals.

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