Real Football Man All of the Football, All of the time
The final fixture of this Premier League extended weekend takes us to Goodison Park where a resurgent Everton play host to basement side Swansea, with their also being the sub plot of Icelandic international Gylfi Sigurdsson going up against his former club after a big money move last Summer.
Everton’s resurgence under Sam Allardyce has been nothing short of impressive with the Toffee’s picking up seven points from a possible nine with the former England boss on the touchline while also picking up a further win in what would be David Unsworth’s final game in charge.
This upturn in results has seen Everton move up to ninth in the Premier League table and a win this evening over Swansea would see them move up to eigth above Watford. There is also a certain irony that after courting Marco Silva for so long and ultimately not being successful in capturing the Hornets boss, they could now end up being better off than them.
With Everton’s up turn in form then a top eight finish is by no means out of the question and if Burnley’s form finally shows any signs of subsided they could well make seventh theirs as well. It may not be the position that they hoped for but after such an awful start to the campaign then things may turn out well in the end.
Last time out Wayne Rooney’s goal was enough to give Everton all three points away at Newcastle and it was second goal in the space of four days as he was also the man who managed to earn a share of the points in the Merseyside derby eight days ago.
It may well have been a contentious penalty from the point of view of Jurgen Klopp but Sam Allardyce would have little complaints after Craig Pawson pointed to the spot after ajudging that Dejan Lovren pushed youngster Dominic Calvert-Lewin in the box.
They will go into this game against Swansea brimming with confidence, but the same cannot be said for Paul Clement’s side who not only find themselves at the foot at the table but they also know that even a win tonight would not see them move out of the bottom three.
The only glimmer of hope as of late has been a win over a West Brom side who have not won in their last 16 matches, but the fact that they are the leagues lowest goal scorers at present means that their current standing is no real coincidence.
Should they fail to find the net tonight then they will have only averaged one goal every other game, which if you were to extrapolate until the end of the season would mean they will have only scored a paltry 19 goals. Relegation form in just about everyone’s eyes, even the most optimistic of Swansea fans.
Quite simply the lack of goals is there downfall, they have actually conceded the least goals in all of the bottom half but where the likes of West Ham and Stoke have conceded heavily they at least have some element of a goal threat to illeviate the issue.
Something that cannot be said for the Swans as they drew another blank in midweek as they were rolled over by Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City juggernaut. Not only did they have trouble up front but they were nothing short of awful in defence.
City may well be cutting through everyone at the moment but they made Swansea look very ordinary last Wednesday, the South Wales outfit were almost like statues and that is something that they cannot afford to repeat this evening.
Truth be told though this goal scoring issue is not going to solve itself for at least a couple of weeks when the transfer window and that coupled with the fact that Everton are in very strong form at the moment can only lend itself to a home win this evening.
