For Everton, Thierno Barry’s second season is already looking like more than a simple follow-up campaign. It is becoming a test of whether a 23-year-old striker can turn a promising start into the kind of output that changes a team’s attack.
That is the point Yakubu was making when he said Everton had seen a “new” Barry this season and challenged him to reach 15 league goals. The target is clear enough, but so is the context around it: last season, Barry and Beto did not score enough for Everton, and that shortage still hangs over the club’s forward line.
A stronger start, but a bigger burden
Barry has at least given Everton something to build on early in the season. He scored on the opening weekend against Crystal Palace, then followed that with a hat-trick in the League Cup win at Preston. Those are the sort of performances that make Yakubu’s comments feel less like encouragement and more like a genuine challenge.
“I think last season we didn’t see much of that. I think we saw the new Barry [against Palace],” Yakubu said. He added that if Barry can “give us fifteen goals a season, it’ll be great” and that Everton “need fifteen from him.”
That demand matters because Barry is now Everton’s only centre-forward in David Moyes’ squad after Beto’s exit and the failed deadline day move for Folarin Balogun. In other words, this is not just about Barry becoming more productive. It is about Everton asking him to carry a role that has become more exposed than ever.
Why the pressure is different now
Yakubu was blunt about the scale of the challenge. “He needs to do more,” he said. “It’s going to be pressure.” That pressure comes from the simple fact that Everton cannot afford another season in which their strikers fall short of the mark. When the team is short on goals, every promising run, every missed chance and every quiet spell becomes magnified.
The encouraging part for Everton is that Barry has already shown a wider range this season. The goal against Crystal Palace and the hat-trick at Preston suggest a striker who is settling into the demands of the role more quickly than he did in his first campaign. The less comfortable part is that Everton now need those signs to become routine, not occasional.
That is what makes Yakubu’s 15-goal target so interesting. It is ambitious without being impossible, and it reflects the reality of Everton’s current squad shape. Barry does not need to be the finished article to make a difference. He does need to be the player who gives Everton reliable goals, because right now they do not have another centre-forward option to lean on.
If Barry can sustain this start, Everton’s attack begins to look more functional. If he cannot, the club’s scoring problem may again define the season. Either way, Yakubu has already named the number that will frame the conversation.
