Everton went into Villa Park and took down one of the Premier League's top teams with a 1-0 win on Sunday afternoon.
David Moyes' side was undermanned (the Everton manager made just one sub on the day, if that's any indication of things), and overcame an onslaught of shots from Unai Emery's men in order to secure all three points. According to FotMob's commentary, the Villans' 18 shots were tied for the club's most "shots in a Premier League home game without scoring back in October 2022 vs Chelsea (18)."
And yet Everton found a way through a miscue at the back, leading to an opportunity for Dwight McNeil to take a shot that was initially saved by Villa's goalkeeper, Emiliano Martinez, but the parry fell to the feet of Thierno Barry, who chipped it over the Argentine's head to give the Toffees the lead.
Solid defending from the Blues allowed the single goal to stand in spite of how hard Aston Villa worked to earn the equalizer. The victory moved Everton up to 10th in the Premier League, although Brighton (currently 12th, 3 points behind) will play on Monday night, hosting Bournemouth.
The win was also notable due to a pair of interesting streaks that ended when Everton held onto the lead after 90 minutes at Villa Park. Each club came into the match on opposite ends of each of those streaks.
For Aston Villa, they came into the match having won 11 in a row on their home ground, going all the way back to September 25, 2025, when they beat Bologna 1-0 in a Europa League contest. Interestingly enough, their last home draw prior to that streak beginning was a 0-0 match against Everton on September 13.
And now Everton have ended the winning run on Villa's home ground with Sunday's win, a game which also put an end to a problematic end for the visitors.
As has often been the case with illustrious grounds like Stamford Bridge and the Etihad, Everton's record at Villa Park in recent years hasn't been good.
In fact, coming into Sunday, Everton hadn't gotten a result in the Premier League there in their last four visits (although they did win in the EFL Cup in September 2023). In those matches, Aston Villa won by an aggregate score of 10-3, an ugly run of showings from Everton.
Everton have been a bit of a footballing Jekyll and Hyde this season, winning games nobody expects them to win and losing matches they probably shouldn't, but on the whole, as the end of January looms, they're roughly where most would have expected them to be this point in the campaign.