Fleetwood Town 2 Everton 5: Courageous Town not overawed by Ancelotti's all-stars

The top-flight stars, who have won all their games so far this term, ran Town ragged in the first half but Barton's men rallied after the break and bagged a couple of well-taken goals from sub Mark Duffy and Callum Camps.

Their League Cup hopes may have been dashed for another season but there will be plenty of positives to take into the battle for League One points.

There were a few eyebrows raised when the team sheets were handed out an hour before kick-off at Highbury.

That wasn't so much from a Fleetwood point of view, however, with Barton's only alteration from the team defeated so desperately late at Peterborough seeing Liverpool loanee defender Morgan Boyes coming in for midfielder Duffy in Town's first-ever Carabao Cup third round tie.

The enormity of the hosts' task soon became evident when Carlo Ancelotti's line-up was revealed. The Italian megastar boss was clearly taking this tie seriously.

The Toffees' starting XI featured household names Jordan Pickford, Michael Keane, Fabian Delph, Gylfi Sigurdsson, Dominic Calvert-Lewin and Richarlison, while on the bench were Theo Walcott, Seamus Coleman, Tom Davies and Moise Kean no less.

Despite facing all those Premier League superstars, Town opened encouragingly and confidently, though Calvert-Lewin and Richarlison both fluffed presentable half-chances in the opening 10 minutes.

The threat, the speed, the accuracy of passing and absolute comfort on the ball were all there, however, from an Everton team tipped for a much better campaign at the top table this time around.

The woodwork saved Town in the 21st minute, when ex-Arsenal hit-man Alex Iwobi saw a deflected 25-yard strike thump the crossbar, but Everton made no mistake a minute later.

Bernard clipped in a peach of a cross for Richarlison and the Brazilian ace nodded home smartly past Alex Cairns.

Richarlison's second 12 minutes later was also very easy on the eye. This time he played a sweet one-two with Iwobi before slamming unerringly into the roof of the net.

Cairns' brilliant brave stop to keep out Calvert-Lewin in stoppage-time prevented a third goal at the end of a half in which Town had been chasing shadows almost throughout.

After a first half without testing Pickford, interval sub Duffy incredibly halved the deficit two minutes into the second period after he profited from the England keeper's fluffed clearance, but less than two minutes later it was 3-1.

This time Iwobi beat Cairns easily from close range after converting sub Anthony Gordon's cross, so it was time for Barton's men to go again.

And that they did. Camps' spectacular overhead kick, following Ched Evans' knock-down, pulled it back to 3-2 and for the first time the Toffees looked rattled.

Alas, the visitors soon regained their classy composure, and the slick Bernard lashed confidently home from 12 yards to make it 4-2 with 17 minutes to go.

Sub Kean slotted in to add a bit of gloss for the Toffees with the last meaningful kick of the game to secure a tie against West Ham in the last-16 next week.

Fleetwood: Cairns, Hill, Stubbs (Duffy, 46), Boyes, Andrew, J Morris, Coutts (Matete, 75), Camps, Whelan, Burns, Evans (Saunders, 75); Subs not used: Leutwiler, Garner, Holgate, S Morris.

Everton: Pickford, Kenny, Keane, Nkounkou, Bernard, Digne, Sigurdsson, Delph (Davies, 62), Iwobi, Richarlison (Kean, 75), Calvert-Lewin (Gordon, 46); Subs not used: Lossl, Walcott, Doucoure, Coleman.

Referee: Jeremy Simpson