Everton pull off another improbable away victory to dent Villa’s title tilt

Life at Everton’s gleaming new home by the Mersey might have been chequered thus far but, away from Bramley-Moore Dock, the Blues have been making a habit this season of upsetting long odds and Premier League history, both relatively recent and long established.

They triumphed at Old Trafford despite having to play all but 13 minutes with 10 men, won on Bournemouth’s home turf in the league for the first time ever and beat Nottingham Forest in the last game of 2025 despite David Moyes having to work with a severely depleted squad.

In truth, the manager’s selection options weren’t much better heading into this trip to Villa Park than they were at the City Ground three weeks ago and with Unai Emery’s men seeking a 12th successive home win and second place in the table, Evertonian expectations of getting anything from today’s game were meagre.

The Blues pulled together, though, and gutted out an admirably defiant performance, hitting the post after just 11 seconds, scoring two goals — one was disallowed on an infuriating technicality that called into further question the validity of some of the rules around offside; the other was a wonderful finish by Thierno Barry — and, thanks in part to another world-class Jordan Pickford save, styming a much-vaunted Aston Villa outfit.

All the talk coming into this match was around Aston Villa, their surprise title charge and, to a lesser extent, the return to these parts of their former hero, Jack Grealish. Had the Villans won, they would have leap-frogged Manchester City and sat just four points behind leaders Arsenal but they were frustrated by Everton for whom Grealish was less the star and more of a cog in a patched-up machine.

If there was a standout performer in the butter-yellow change strip, it was James Garner who worked tirelessly in the midfield alongside the equally industrious young pair of Harrison Armstrong and Merlin Röhl while James O’Brien was a rock in partnership with James Tarkowski and Nathan Patterson acquitted himself well at right-back.

Barry ultimately stole the headlines but Röhl came within a whisker of announcing himself on the Premier League stage with the first action of the game. Jordan Pickford launched the ball long following the kick-off, Barry won the flick-on and in a moment reminiscent of Abdoulaye Doucouré’s opener against Leicester almost a year ago, Röhl stole onto the knockdown but watched his right-foot shot bounce off the inside of the post.

Having survived that very early scare — it was the earliest a team has hit the woodwork in a match since Opta began keeping records of such incidents 20 years ago — Villa looked to settle into their preferred mode of trying to tease Everton into a press and then spring a through-ball between the lines for Morgan Rogers or Ollie Watkins to race onto.

Emiliano Buendia, so often an Everton nemesis who had contributed to the Blues failing to beat the Villans in the league for a decade, threaded Rogers in with just four minutes gone but the latter side-footed over the bar and that would be a feature of the forward’s afternoon.

Eight minutes later, when Röhl was robbed of the ball in midfield, Ian Maatsen was played in on the overlap but his shot was saved by Pickford before the hosts suffered a significant blow with the loss to injury of midfield general, John McGinn.

His replacement, Evann Guessand, almost made an early impact when Youri Tielemans picked him out with an incisive pass but Pickford smothered at his feet while, at the other end, Emiliano Martinez had to push a fizzing Vitalii Mykolenko drive over his bar following excellent work by Röhl.

From that corner, taken short to Garner who whipped a dangerous ball into the six-yard box, Jake O’Brien thought he had put Everton ahead with a thumping header but the referee’s assistant flagged for offside straight away, killing the celebrations of the traveling Toffees in the away section.

There was hope when replays showed that the player in a clearly offside position when the cross was struck was Armstrong but Video Assistant Referee, Paul Howard, upheld the on-field decision claiming that the teenager was interfering with play by jumping for the ball in front of Buendia.

That second let-off seemed to spark Villa into greater urgency and when Maatsen raced to the byline and cut the ball back for Rogers, he looked odds-on to score until O’Brien blocked his shot behind at close range. From the corner, Pickford did well to beat away another powerful effort from Rogers to keep things goalless.

Emery’s side almost grabbed the lead late in the first-half, however, when Tielemans was once again the provider with a high ball to find Guessand but, thankfully, his looping header over Pickford bounced off the crossbar instead of dropping in.

If the expectation was that Villa would regroup during the interval and make a more concerted effort to push themselves over the line in the second period, it seemed that way for the first 15 mins, even if they weren’t able to fashion many clear-cut chances against a stubborn Everton back line.

Grealish’s early slip sparked a Villa counter-attack but Tarkowski was well placed to block a Watkins shot before Tielemans headed a gilt-edged chance wide of the target from Matty Cash’s accurate delivery.

At the other end, Garner ballooned a rare chance of the Blues high over the goal but just before the hour mark, a mistake by the home defence gave Everton the opening they needed to grab the lead.

Seizing on a loose ball that had bounced off Pau Torres’s foot just outside the Villa box, Dwight McNeil tried to curl a shot around Martinez but the Argentine was initially equal to it, diving to his right and getting both gloves on it. When he failed to maintain his grip on the ball, though, he presented it to Barry who composed himself beautifully to chip it back over the prone keeper and under the crossbar, his dinked finish eluding a desperate lunge by Ezri Konsa to keep it out.

Predictably, it was largely one-way traffic for the remainder of the contest but Everton stuck to their task superbly and after Rogers had skied back-to-back efforts into the Holte End, Pickford pulled a save out of the top draw to prevent him equalising. A set-piece from the Villa right fell to Rogers just outside the penalty area and when he swept the ball towards the top corner, England’s No 1 leapt salmon-like to palm it behind.

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Backed by an increasingly restless home crowd, Villa pressed in the closing stages with O’Brien charging down a shot by Konsa, Tarkowski blocking a strike by Buendia and Pickford comfortably catching substitute Lucas Digne’s over-head kick.

But by stoppage time, Emery’s charges had largely run out of ideas and only a stinging ball forward by Tielemans that Buendia was unable to divert goal-wards with his head threatened to ruin Everton’s day.

This isn’t the first time an un-fancied Everton team has gone to Villa Park and dynamited a long Aston Villa winning run. In 2023, Emery’s men were on a 10-game sequence of home victories when the Toffees beat them 2-1 in the Carabao Cup. (Coincidentally, today's referee, Tony Harrington was also the main official on that occasion.) That evening, Sean Dyche had close to a fully fit squad; this afternoon, Moyes had just Beto, the struggling Tyler Dibling and a barely-fit Seamus Coleman as experienced, senior-level replacements on this bench.

As such, it was another stunning away result that puts the Blues back in touch with the European places and prolongs this rollercoaster ride of emotions that has characterised the past month or so as Moyes had tried to find solutions despite a raft of absences due to injury, suspension and the Africa Cup of Nations.

Now, as the likes of Iliman Ndiaye and Idrissa Gueye prepare to return from Morocco, if he could just sort out the home form…