Everton 2 Brighton and Hove Albion 0
The team in blue and white won – unfortunately, Brighton wore red faces and their purple away kit.
Everton goalkeeper Jordan Pickford saved a spot kick from Danny Welbeck, quelling any hope of a comeback for the Seagulls.
Jack Grealish put in a man-of-the-match display as the Toffees claimed all three points in the first Premier League game at the Hill Dickinson Stadium.
The on-loan Manchester City winger, like Everton’s new home on the banks of the River Mersey, offers hope of a brighter future for the hosts.
The England international certainly appeared to have started emerging from his personal doldrums with assists for both goals.
He managed just two in the last two Premier League seasons at City but matched that in only 71 minutes of football after his change of scenery.
The first was for Iliman Ndiaye, who wrote his name into the history books for a second time in three months – as the scorer of the final goal at Goodison Park as well as the first at their new home.
Even Grealish would admit that his second owed more to the pureness of James Garner’s 25-yard strike than his gentle roll-back for the makeshift left-back. But he fully deserved his standing ovation when he was subbed in second-half added time.
It was a day of firsts: the first time since Easter Monday 1892 that Everton had played a home game not at Goodison and first starts for Grealish and France Under-21 striker Thierno Barry – and Everton’s first win of the season after the losing at Leeds on Monday (18 August).
Grealish wore Wayne Rooney’s old number 18 shirt and came out for the pre-match handshakes with his 11-month-old daughter Mila in his arms.
But she was not all that he was carrying as manager David Moyes admitted putting him in the side earlier than he wanted to try to inject more goals.
The move paid off even better than the Scot could have hoped for.
It wasn’t just the passes he played but the sense of anticipation he brought which has not been felt in these parts since the early days of James Rodriguez in 2020.
His dispossession of Yankuba Minteh brought a huge cheer and almost every touch was applauded as fans sought to elicit the mercurial talent long-buried at City.
The first glimpse came in the 23rd minute when Ndiaye started the move which, after passing through Idrissa Gueye and Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall, ended with him volleying in after Grealish found half-a-yard on Mats Wieffer and fizzed over a knee-high cross.
It was perfectly timed as moments earlier Kaoru Mitoma’s volley had clipped the top of the crossbar when James Tarkowski misjudged Bart Verbruggen’s kick.
And Danny Welbeck, in for the injured Georginio Rutter, had missed an open goal from six yards from Minteh’s cross.
Brighton defender Jan Paul van Hecke’s deflected shot hit a post not long after a minute’s applause for Michael Goodison Jones, who died on this site two years ago during its construction.
And Pickford spared Tarkowski’s embarrassment when he passed to Matt O’Riley in his own penalty area.
But Ndiaye, playing off the right, posed a significant threat of his own, running from deep.
And when Everton complete the signing of Southampton’s Tyler Dibling next week, the prospect of those two and Grealish all in the same side should go a long way to rectifying Moyes’s creativity problem.
Seven minutes into the second half Grealish, by now being doubled-up on by Brighton, teed up Garner and the ground finally came alive.
The atmosphere needs time to grow as fans get to know their surroundings and build relationships with those around them but results will massively improve that.
And not forgetting the penalty save. The real party started when Pickford dived the right way to save Welbeck’s spot-kick.
The penalty was awarded after, for the second time in a week, Everton conceded contentiously when Minteh drove the ball against Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall’s arm.
