Everton defeated Southampton 7-1 at Goodison Park on November 16, 1996
It’s been over five-and-a-half years since fans saw Everton net even four goals in a Premier League game at Goodison Park, but on this day in 1996, the Blues went seven up. For the record, that former statistic came when Marco Silva’s side defeated Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s Manchester United 4-0 in the spring sunshine on April 21, 2019, but following this scoreline – which has only been repeated once against Sunderland some 11 years later – many started to consider Joe Royle’s side as dark horses in the title race.
A series of confused events on transfer deadline day ensured the stable door was left open, and the Blues boss had – willingly or not – bolted on March 27. Everton would end the season much closer to the relegation zone than to eventual champions Manchester United, but that spectacular unravelling seemed a long way off back in November.
Even ‘The Anfield Iron’ Tommy Smith enjoyed the drubbing. Despite his arch Kopite status, Smith regularly attended matches at Goodison Park in retirement and even considered the Blues as his second team, insisting: ‘I want to see them win too – unless they’re playing against us.’
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Remarking on the cries from the home fans of: “Souness, what’s the score?” directed at the Southampton manager who was briefly his Reds team-mate, Smith admitted in the ECHO: “I couldn’t help it. I had to join in this victory chant!”
Royle had spectacularly revived Everton’s fortunes since his return two years earlier. Taking over his former club when they were bottom of the table, he had successfully steered them clear of relegation danger and become the only Blues boss to deliver a trophy in his first season, the 1995 FA Cup which remains their last major silverware to date.
With the exciting recruitment of Andrei Kanchelskis, Royle followed that up with what proved to be the club’s only top half finish in the Premier League’s first decade as Everton came sixth in 1995/96. More firepower from midfield was added with lifelong Evertonian Gary Speed snapped up from Leeds United in the summer of 1996 and Nick Barmby arriving for a club record £5.75million from Middlesbrough in the autumn.
Both would get on the scoresheet for Royle here, but the main talking point surrounded a couple of other Blues number nines, one past and one present. The game was Everton’s first at Goodison since the death of Tommy Lawton and David Prentice wrote in the ECHO: “Everton honoured their revered and recently departed centre-forward, Tommy Lawton, in the most fitting manner possible.
“They reproduced a scoreline which went out of fashion with centre-parts and Brylcreem. But there was an irony in among the Blues’ irresistible 7-1 slaughter of Southampton… they did it without a big number nine.
“Duncan Ferguson was the only dissatisfied Evertonian inside Goodison Park on Saturday. He’s fit and available for Wednesday’s big derby showdown, but there’s no way Joe Royle can change a side which swept away the best Southampton sequence for a decade.”
Indeed, Big Dunc had to be content with a second half substitute appearance in the 1-1 draw at Anfield.
Against the Saints though, home-grown hero Tony Grant got much of the credit for pulling the strings in midfield. Prentice wrote: “His polish and elegance has marked him down as the midfielder Evertonians have craved since Ball, Harvey and Kendall,’ before adding the more cautionary note: “All too often Grant’s flashes of brilliance have been followed by frustrating anonymity.”
Graham Stuart opened the scoring on 12 minutes, turning the ball in at the far post after a miss by Kanchelskis but the Russian international, who Prentice quipped: “got better service than a first-class Concorde passenger,” soon added a brace of his own. On 22 minutes, Stuart fed Kanchelskis on the right and – as he did so many times in a manner of more latter day ‘inverted’ wingers – he cut inside to fire into the net with a left foot shot.
Speed’s wand of a left foot brought the third on the half hour mark from the edge of the area and he netted again with a diving header just two minutes later while Kanchelskis nodded in the fifth from Andy Hinchcliffe’s left-wing cross on 35 minutes. Despite Egil Ostenstad’s low drive providing a 39th minute consolation for the Saints, with the points already seemingly in the bag, Royle made the unusual move at the break to substitute goalkeeper Neville Southall and bring on summer signing Paul Gerrard for his Everton debut.
New boy Barmby netted his first goal for the club on 57 minutes, sliding in at the back post to meet a low right-wing cross from Kanchelskis while Speed sealed the rout and his hat-trick with a towering header from an inswinging Hinchcliffe corner kick on 72 minutes. Prentice concluded: “It was a day when everything went right. Even Speed’s cherished matchball was returned – after David Unsworth had booted it clean out of the ground in the 88th minute.”
