Everton Secures Convincing Opening Victory as Moyes Celebrates Youthful Midfield
Everton arrived at Goodison with the weight of last season still hanging over them – seven games without a win to close out 2025-26, the usual unease, the usual doubts. Ninety minutes later, they walked off with something they haven’t had in years on opening day: a clean, convincing Premier League victory and a midfield that suddenly looks built for tomorrow.
Crystal Palace will wonder how. Everton won 2-0. The numbers say it could easily have gone the other way.
Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall smashed them in front three minutes before the break, Thierno Barry killed it in the second half, and David Moyes walked down the tunnel talking about energy, youth and opportunity rather than survival and struggle.
For Everton, that alone feels like a shift.
Young legs, old-school Moyes
This was Everton’s first win on matchday one of a Premier League season since August 2021, when Rafael Benitez was in the dugout and Southampton were the victims. Four straight opening defeats without scoring had followed. No goals, no joy, no sense of a reset.
Moyes ripped that up with one of the youngest XIs of his second spell. Average age: 25 years and 308 days – only once has he gone younger since coming back, in the 2-0 win over Nottingham Forest last December.
The headline was the midfield. The feel of it. The legs in it.
Nineteen-year-old academy product Harrison Armstrong started. So did Hayden Hackney, 24, freshly in from Middlesbrough. Their presence dragged the average age down and the tempo up.
“They were great, I'm really pleased,” Moyes told Everton’s website. “Harrison is earning his place in the team. He's got an opportunity here, where at other clubs he might not have. He's shown lots of good things.
“With Hayden, sometimes boys from the Championship need time, but he's done well. I have to give him praise for how quickly he's picked things up.”
Those are the sort of lines managers usually save for a League Cup night in November. Moyes was rolling them out on the opening weekend of the Premier League season. That tells its own story.
Palace hit the woodwork, Everton hit the net
The game itself did not start like a comfortable Everton win. Palace, under new boss Pierre Sage, carved out the better chances before the break and should have punished them.
Eddie Nketiah went clean through and looked certain to score, only for Jordan Pickford to get the faintest of touches and divert the ball onto the post. Jean-Philippe Mateta also struck the upright. Goodison held its breath more than once.
“Both teams had periods in the game. We could easily have been a couple of goals down – it was a worldie save and it could have gone the other way,” Moyes admitted.
The pressure finally told, but not in the way Palace expected.
On 42 minutes, with Everton still looking for rhythm, Dewsbury-Hall stepped up. A rasping strike, hit clean and true, and suddenly the whole afternoon changed. One moment of quality, one swing of the game.
“Once we got the first goal, it settled us. That mattered. We had big moments; Kiernan's goal was important,” Moyes said.
Palace never quite recovered. Everton, for once, looked like a side that knew how to hold a lead.
Sage left to rue missed chances
The numbers underline just how much Palace let this slip. They finished with a higher expected goals tally – 2.04 to Everton’s 1.16 – despite taking only 11 shots to the hosts’ 16.
Crucially, 1.65 of that xG came in the first half. That was their window. They didn’t climb through it.
“We played in the right way to win in the first half, but not in the second,” Sage told Palace TV. “But when you play in this direction, you have to score.
“We missed two or three big opportunities, and we gave the goal to the opponent. That's why the second half was difficult, with them getting the second goal too.
“Sometimes, you know, you do the job but you don't get the salary at the end – and today it was like that.
“Sometimes you play very well and you can keep it on YouTube, and when you lose your finishing, you take the clip and you put it in the waste. That's why a goal is very important.”
It was a blunt assessment, but an accurate one. Palace had Everton where they wanted them. They didn’t finish. Everton did.
Barry’s second after the interval only deepened that sense. By then, Moyes’ side were managing the contest, closing spaces, and strangling any hint of a comeback.
“We managed the game well after that and contained Palace really well,” Moyes said. He was right. The jeopardy had gone.
A different kind of Everton question
Strip away the xG and the woodwork, and the story that remains is of a manager leaning into youth and being rewarded. Armstrong didn’t hide. Hackney didn’t look overawed. Dewsbury-Hall and Barry delivered in the decisive moments.
Everton still have plenty to prove. One sharp performance on the opening weekend doesn’t erase last season’s scars or the questions around depth, consistency and goals.
But this felt different. Not just a result, but a direction.
Next up is a midweek EFL Cup tie against Preston North End before a trip to Bournemouth in the league. Palace, licking their wounds, must now prepare to host Manchester City on Friday.
For Moyes, the challenge is clear: was this a bright one-off, or the start of a season where Everton’s kids stop being a storyline and simply become the standard?
