The ninth round of the new Premier League season continues on Saturday afternoon with this match kicking off at 5:30 PM. One of the several fixtures that will be played simultaneously is the game between Everton and Fulham. It is one of the lower-profile fixtures happening on the day but it could make for an interesting contest regardless.
This will be Everton’s fifth home game of the season and the aim for Shaun Dyche’s men will be to make sure teams find it hard to get a result at Goodison Park. Last season, they had an average home record with eight wins and seven losses. The 28 points they managed to win at home saw them take 15th place in the League for points won at home. They will need to be better at home this season than they were in the last campaign to stay clear of a relegation dogfight.
There is no doubt that the off-pitch issues and distractions negatively affected the team’s performance on the pitch last year as the PSR points deductions caused a largely comfortable Toffees team into a relegation battle but the team managed to escape relegation in the end. The long-winded takeover attempt of 777 also played its part in hindering their season. The fact that the takeover eventually failed makes the frustrations of last season increase for Everton fans.
The Everton manager has revealed that the club’s goal has not changed with survival being their main task: “The bar for next season is making sure we safeguard this club in the Premier League. It hasn’t changed. There will be more challenges coming. I’ve tried to be honest with you, telling the fans the truth.
“It will not be fixed overnight. It is going to be a building process and it takes time. I think there is growth, from when I got into where it is now. There has been development in the side and the players and the mentality for sure. But there is a long way to go to get it back to where Everton thinks they are.
“The perception is often bigger than the truth of the story, so I’m trying to find the gap between the two and bring it together so fans go ‘OK, we kind of get where we are at’. I’m trying to do that but there are more challenges to come, I don’t just mean financial, I mean balancing out the club, balancing out the playing side of things, balancing out the wage structure. There are more challenges to come.”
The Everton manager has seen his fair share of relegation battles and will know how to navigate his team to safety but he would rather not fight one at all. The team is good enough to stay comfortably in mid-table for the whole season and fingers will be crossed in hopes of a distraction-free campaign.
Their defensive foundations will set the tone for achieving their goals this season. Lady year, they conceded 51 goals last season and had one of the best defensive records in the entire division. The Toffees conceded the third least amount of goals in the entire division but they couldn’t create enough or score enough goals to be higher up in the standings. This is one thing that needs to change this year.
On the flip side, Fulham will head into this fixture hoping to come away from Goodison Park with all three points. Last season, Fulham finished two places and seven points ahead of Everton and they will be looking to go even further than their 13th-place finish last term.
Like Burnley, the main objective for Fulham will be to score more goals to make their climb back up the table this year but they don’t necessarily have prolific goal-scorers in their ranks.
They will at least take pride in the fact that the last time they faced Everton away from home, they came away with all three points via a 73rd-minute goal by Bobby Decordova-Reid.
Match Tickets
Everton vs Fulham tickets can be found online for fans looking to purchase. As usual, a sold-out crowd is expected at Goodison Park for their fifth home game of the season. Everton fans would be up for the fixture and the iconic ground will be loud in support of their team.
The game will be played at Goodison Park on Saturday, 26th of October at 5:30 PM. Fans in and around the United Kingdom where Sky Sports’ coverage reaches will be able to enjoy the game at that time.
The English Premier League as a World’s best league is broadcast to 212 total provinces in the world, which means that fans outside the United Kingdom have to tune in to one of the league’s broadcast partners in their province for the game.
Team news
The Toffees currently have a clean bill of health coming to this fixture and they will go after all three points with their best players available for selection.
Fulham will also have the full complement of their first-team squad fit and ready to travel to Goodison Park. At the moment, they have not recorded any injuries
Lineups
Sean Dyche’s side will play their preferred 4-4-2 formation as they search for a home victory. The highly rated Jarrad Branthwaite will partner up with James Tarkowski in the center of defence while Dominic Calvert-Lewin will lead the lineup front.
Everton: Pickford, Godfrey, Tarkowski, Branthwaite, Mykolenko, Harrison, Doucoure, Garner, McNiel, Ndiaye, Calvert-Lewin.
Marco Silva’s men will field a balanced 4-2-3-1 formation with Kenny Tete and Anotnee Robinson starting as the fullbacks for this game. New signings Jorge Cuenca and Emile Smith-Rowe will feature in the starting lineup
Fulham: Leno; Tete, Bassey, Cuenca, Robinson, Reed, Lukic, Pereira, Willian, Smith-Rowe, Muniz.
Prediction
From start to finish, this will be a match where defences will largely be on top. Both teams will be resolute in their attempts to keep the other from scoring and eventually, Fulham will just narrowly get all three points again like they did last season.
Everton 0-1 Fulham
