« on: February 20, 2021, 03:08:18 pm »
Officials
Referee: Chris Kavanagh
Assistants: Dan Cook, Sian Massey-Ellis
Fourth official: Paul Tierney
VAR: Andre Marriner Assistant VAR: Simon Long
I’m not going to mention the previous match with this lot as it’s all been said already and no doubt the main points will come up again.
Let’s focus on the match and the future as the past is gone and there’s no point dragging it up again.
Currently they are 3 points behind us with one game in hand so it’s important for both teams to win this.
We go into the match with 3 losses in a row which is obviously disappointing but even so our points tally over the last 5 matches is two points ahead of theirs.
They haven’t beaten us for the last 23 matches going over 10 years and I don’t see that changing. We are in a horrible run of form but I think a quiet word from Virgil, “win it for me guys” will be enough to motivate us (we don’t need any motivation).
The big issue for me is whether we’ll move Henderson into midfield and play our two new centre halves or bring back Phillips plus Kabak. However after his display against RBL I can’t see Henderson playing anywhere other than centre half; he was my MOTM on Tuesday. He’ll be fired up for this game and it’s fortunate for Everton that there’ll be no crowd…….the atmosphere would be intimidating. At the time of writing this, it is not clear whether Fabinho will be fit but it looks unlikely. I would have liked to see Kabak and Davies starting but I think this is too tough a match to do that.
I think Jurgen will also be fired up and will be barking orders from the touchline……..the TV will need a special swearword bleep for him. He’s been through a very tough time and I know what he’s going through. I think he’ll be full of emotion for a while and will drive the team on from the touch line.
Up front it is disappointing that Jota isn’t back and I don’t think that Keita will be ready to start but he may be on the bench and could come on at some time.
Hopefully Alisson has put his recent mistakes behind him and will show us his “normal” exceptional performance. I have little doubt that he’ll have a good game.
One thing that has been missing is quick passing and I would love to see us pinging the ball quickly and pulling their defence all over the place. We need to concentrate and to smother them as soon as they have the ball. Our recent displays have all been good and we’ve just been missing a small spark.
I think we’ll start with the same 11 players. Curtis was superb in the last game so he deserves to start.
Let’s hope we see the following after the match……….he’s the best manager around and we are so lucky to have him.
I fully expect us to dominate and to score freely. I think this will be the game where we look back and see that things started to get better. I hope every single player will fight for every ball and leave nothing on the pitch. We have to win........anything less is no good.
Oh and I said that I wouldn’t mention the previous match but I suspect that there will be some niggle. I think Everton may target Thiago and Kabak, both of whom tend to mistime their tackles so expect lots of rolling around from Everton to try to influence the ref. My other fear is that Henderson takes things into his own hands and gets too fired up over what happened previously. All it may take is one bad tackle from Everton and emotions may take over. Hope I am wrong. Let’s be firm and play with passion. Don’t give them one second on the ball. Play them off the park.
Over to you guys to predict the lineups, score and any other things you want to discuss.
« Last Edit: February 20, 2021, 07:12:24 pm by TepidT2O »
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