Match Preview
Everton are back in action at Goodison Park this weekend when they take on West Ham United in what will be their last home game for more than a month as they seek a first Premier League win in nine matches.
The Club’s medical staff will give Amadou Onana and Idrissa Gana Gueye late fitness tests before Sean Dyche names his side to face David Moyes’s somewhat erratic outfit.
Both midfielders are dealing with groin complaints, with Gueye forced off against Brighton last Saturday when, as Dyche described it, a muscle seized up early in the second half. The Senegal international had apparently felt tightness during the first half but indicated at half-time that he was fine to carry on and lasted just four more minutes.
Onana, meanwhile, took a heavy blow to his lower leg when Billy Gilmour followed through on him before being shown a straight red card in the 1-1 draw at the Amex Community Stadium but it appears as though his intermitted groin problem has resurfaced.
Sean Dyche said in his pre-match press conference at Finch Farm tosay that “[Gana] is still settling down and Ama has got a groin thing, similar to Gana’s, which is just settling down. So we’ll make more of a decision on them [on Friday].”
On the more positive side, however, the manager confirmed that André Gomes has resumed training and “is going well” but Arnaut Danjuma likely won’t figure until after the three-week break that Everton have ahead of them following the trip to Old Trafford to face Manchester United because of the international break and the postponement of the Goodison derby against Liverpool on account of the Reds’ involvement in the FA Cup.
“Arnie is doing well with his ankle but it’s obviously a longer-term situation,” Dyche explained. “He’s doing really well. I just spoke to him before I came in and he’s in a good place. It’s going well.”
Though Seamus Coleman has recovered from illness and both Nathan Patterson and Ashley Young are fit and available, Dyche is expected to retain Ben Godfrey at right-back, with the only change from the side that started on the south coast last weekend likely to be in midfield if Gueye is ruled out.
West Ham arrested a six-match winless run of their own on Monday evening when they beat Brentford in fairly convincing fashion 4-2, a result that moved them back up to eighth place in the table and, perhaps, subdued the disquiet among some in the Irons faithful round Moyes’s tenure.
Key for the Hammers has been the return to fitness of midfield linchpin, Lucas Paquetà, who, alongside Mohammed Kudus and Jarrod Bowen, will be the key dangerman that the Toffees will need to keep quiet.
The Brazilian’s return means that Moyes has a completely clean bill of health for his squad, with only Kalvin Phillips missing because of suspension.
Matches involving a return to L4 for Moyes usually attract headlines but this fixture has an added wrinkle with the appointment of controversial official, Craig Pawson, as the match referee.
Pawson has made himself a detested figure at Goodison for a number of poor decisions he has made involving the Blues in recent years, not least the red card shown to Allan in the game against Newcastle in March 2022, his failure to send Ibrahim Konaté off in the Anfield derby earlier this season, and his directive as VAR to red card Dominic Calvert-Lewin in the FA Cup Third Round tie at Crystal Palace in January.
Kick-off: 3pm, Saturday 2 March 2024
Referee: Craig Pawson
VAR: Tony Harrington
Last Time: Everton 1 – 0 West Ham United
Predicted Line-up: Pickford, Godfrey, Tarkowski, Branthwaite, Mykolenko, Onana, Garner, Harrison, McNeil, Doucouré, Calvert-Lewin