Match Report There was to be no fairytale return to Goodison Park for David Moyes in his first match back in charge of Everton as Ollie Watkins punished a defensive mistake to plunder the points for Aston Villa. Moyes was back on the touchline as the Blues’ boss after a 12-year absence but while his new charges showed plenty of willingness and effort, they desperately lacked the quality needed to salvage anything from the game. Dominic Calvert-Lewin missed a sitter at the death while Everton felt they should have had a penalty, either for an arm around Calvert-Lewin’s neck or a shove on substitute Jesper Lindstøm but referee Sam Barrott capped a poor display of officiating by ignoring the pleas for a spot-kick. With only a few days to prepare for the visit of the Villans, Moyes opted for a very familiar line-up, with Ashley Young coming back in for Nathan Patterson and Abdoulaye Doucouré taking up his usual role behind the striker. Not surprisingly, there was little change in terms of the team’s attacking effectiveness; instead it was the visitors who carried all the early threat with Amadou Onana seeing a shot deflected wide and another miss from 25 yards while Jordan Pickford palmed a Morgan Rogers effort behind. Watkins should have opened the scoring after 17 minutes when Young gave him the ball with an awful back-pass but the England striker was closed down by his international goalkeeping team-mate, Jordan Pickford, and swept the ball past the far post. At the other end, Calvert-Lewin had Everton’s first real sight of goal when Vitalii Mykolenko played a lovely ball down the channel and the striker drove forward before whipping a left-footer across Emiliano Martinez’s goal and just past the upright. 12 minutes later, Doucouré arrived in the box to meet the Ukrainian’s low cross but his prodded effort was too close to the keeper, who made the save while Pickford stopped Boubacar Kamara’s low drive for Villa. Everton’s best chance fell to Calvert-Lewin once more but he couldn’t get enough purchase on his shot which hit the prone Martinez before Kamara hooked it away off his goal line while Rogers spurned a gilt-edged opportunity to send Unai Emery’s men into half-time a goal up when he lashed wide with the goal almost at his mercy. After surviving another scare shortly after the restart when Rogers hooked a loose ball Pickford’s goal, sloppiness in the middle of the pitch by Everton gifted Villa the lead. Jarrad Branthwaite's loose pass was seized on by Rogers who sent the striker away to calmly slot past Pickford. The Blues generally struggled to make headway against a dogged Villa defence after that but they did grow into the contest as the second period wore on. After either the referee nor the VAR had seen fit to award the Toffees a penalty, Villa made two desperate clearances from goalmouth meleés but that was as close as Moyes’s side came to levelling the game until stoppage time. That’s when Orel Mangala forced a save from Martinez with a shot from the angle and, a minute later, Lindstrøm appeared to have served the equaliser on a plate for Calvert-Lewin but the striker fluffed his lines, scooping the ball over the bar from just six yards out. Lyndon Lloyd top Match Preview David Moyes faces his first test as the new Everton manager with the visit of Aston Villa to Goodison Park under the lights on Wednesday night. The number of senior players he can call on is still limited by injuries, with Armando Broja the latest worry after he was carried off in pain after damaging his ankle against Peterborough, 6 days after jarring his leg as he kicked the turf when attempting to strike the ball against Bournemouth, the swelling still preventing a full scan and diagnosis. Dwight McNeil is definitely out and James Garner, Tim Iroegbunam and Youssef Chermiti seem to have been getting closer to the point of returning to the first team but have yet to make the subs bench; none even merited a mention by David Moyes in his pre-match presser which seemed to be more about his triumphant return to the club, than the pressing matter of 3 points needed against Aston Villa in the battle to avoid relegation from the Premier League. At least Moyes seems to understand the fundamental problem Everton have faced all season, if not for far longer: the chronic inability to score anything like enough goals. It seems he has already had words with the enigmatic centre-forward he inherited on arrival, having spoken with Dominic Calvert-Lewin to make sure he knows what is expected of him. Whether the wantaway striker will respond to such encouragement remains to be seen… Dominic Calvert-Lewin could return after being dropped from the squad for the Peterborough match cup-tine, while McNeil, who scored the opener in Everton’s 3-2 defeat at Villa Park in September, is still missing through injury. And Moyes shouldn't have to do too much to get the defence working to order; when it comes to that side of the game, the philosophies of the current and former incumbents of the Goodison hotseat are almost indistinguishable. The difference will be manifest hopefully further up the field, where the transition from defence to attack when turning over possession of the ball from the opponents tomorrow night will be a critical sign of what Moyes has been able to achieve in the short time since his Second Coming. Can the midfield show some creativity and positive meaningful forward movement, both on and off the ball? Will the full-backs be allowed to cross the half-way line and even overlap with forwards to provide crosses that we all know they should be perfectly capable of delivering? Will the exciting ball skills and determination of Iliman Ndiaye be better provided with supporting players at close quarters who can give him options for playing one-twos and getting himself into an often crowded penalty area so that he can execute the final act of his elegant slaloms with more effectiveness? Dyche's reliance on set-pieces has fallen flat this season, and David Moyes must surely recognize that goals scored from forward and midfield players across the team in open play is perhaps the only way he is going to turn around the plummeting fortunes of the dispirited and largely disinterested players who Dyche has left him with. Evertonians will need no reminder that the visitors could provide a return for Ross Barkley, Lucas Digne and Amadu Onana – three of the many in a long list of 'better' former Everton players who have been made available for transfer, most likely to ensure a substantial profit in the player transactions column while the quality of the squad declined so much on Farhad Moshiri's watch. However, Barkley is ruled out of this game with injury, as are Pau Torres, John McGinn, and Diego Carlos, but Emiliano Martinez is expected to be fit and Jhon Duran returns from suspension. Aston Villa have also completed the signing of Borussia Dortmund's Dutch winger Donyell Malen but he was not registered before Tuesday's cutoff and is not eligible to play tonight. The 25-year-old is Villa's first signing of the January transfer window after a productive spell in Germany, netting 39 goals and providing 20 assists in 132 appearances. But this season, he has only scored 3 from 14 Bundesliga appearances, mainly off the bench. For those who can't make it to Goodison Park on Wednesday night, the match is being broadcast live on TNT Sports 2, with coverage starting at 18:30 GMT Kick-Off: 7:30 pm Wednesday 15 January 2025Referee: Tim RobinsonAssistant Referees: Timothy Wood and Steven MeredithFourth Official: Bobby MadleyVideo Assistant Referee: Chris KavanaghAssistant VAR: Sian Massey-Ellis Michael Kenrick top * Unfortunately, we cannot control other sites' content policies and therefore cannot guarantee that links to external reports will remain active.