David Moyes hopes to have Jack Grealish back for the trip to City Ground to face Nottingham Forest on Tuesday.
The Toffees will be looking to turn things around after a three-game winless streak and after playing out a dull and drab goalless draw with Burnley away from home last weekend. Grealish missed that clash in East Lancashire due to illness, but the Manchester City loanee will be back this week "with a bit of luck", Moyes hopes.
Everton beat Nottingham Forest 3-0 at home earlier this month in the first round of fixtures, a result that had taken them to fifth in the league standings on the back of an impressive run. Currently, down at 12th after losses to Chelsea and Arsenal and the draw with Burnley, Moyes said that there’s not a big gap points-wise and the table is very congested.
“It's very hard. If you win two, you might move up to fifth. If you lose two, you might drop down to 15th,” the Everton boss said in the pre-match press conference.
“I don't know. I think the way the league is, I think what we want to do is make sure that we're in a strong enough position. And that's why, whatever you say, picking up a point [against Burnley], while probably we would have hoped to get more, it's their home game and they're needing it as well.
“At the moment, we want to keep picking up points where we can and adding to the total. We would have liked three [against Burnley] but our performance didn't merit that on the day.”
While the Blues did secure a comfortable win over the Tricky Trees at Hill Dickinson Stadium, the team shouldn't rest on its laurels. Everton are notably missing Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall, who contributed to two goals in that contest, as well as magic man Iliman Ndiaye. Forest, meanwhile, will be able to count on their reliable centre-back Murillo, who had missed the trip to Merseyside last time around.
“Yeah, look, I don't think any should be kidded with Nottingham Forest. Nottingham Forest are a team who qualified for Europe last year and were well up the league and played really well all last season, got positive results. So, I think their squad of players are certainly in a far better place than their league position suggests at the moment,” Moyes added.
The match against Forest was also particularly memorable for young striker Thierno Barry. Signed from Villarreal this summer, the French U21 international endured a lean run of form before scoring his first goal for Everton in the 3-0 drubbing of Forest.
Everton, notably, are yet to score a goal since that win on December 6 and have drawn blanks in their last three games, which is becoming a concern for Moyes and his staff.
Speaking about Barry and his overall output, Moyes said, “I think he's played well in some games, even today when he came on, the keeper makes a really good save from him. But, yeah, look, I think he's improved.
“We've tried to give him a run of games to give him that confidence and give him a chance to show what he can do. But ultimately, any of the centre-forwards we've got have got to score goals because you need that as a number nine. I think he's got one and Beto's got one as well, so that's not good enough and we need to find more goals.”
It will be interesting to see whether Barry starts against Forest once again after being dropped to the bench for Beto in the clash against Burnley.
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1 Posted 29/12/2025 at 15:23:10
I don't want to talk about Barry and Beto.