Match Preview
Everton are back at Goodison Park on Saturday with another chance to register three successive victories in all competitions when Brighton come to town.
The Blues are hoping to build some more momentum following their success at West Ham last Sunday and their comfortable passage to the last eight of the Carabao Cup with the 3-0 win over Burnley in midweek.
Sean Dyche’s men were in the same position just over a month ago when, having won at Brentford and knocked Aston Villa out of the League Cup, they could have made it three straight wins for the first time since August 2021 by beating Luton. However, poor defending and an impotent attacking performance condemned them to a 2-1 defeat.
This weekend’s opponents pose an altogether more difficult challenge than the newly-promoted Hatters as well. Brighton come into match week 11 sitting in seventh place in the Premier League and with the memory of their 4-1 win at Goodison in January still very much seared into the collective Everton memory.
That sodden evening under the lights was a harrowing one and it ended up being one of the final nails in Frank Lampard’s proverbial coffin as the Toffees’ boss. Under Sean Dyche, Everton have largely been a different proposition, as they demonstrated in the return game at the Amex Stadium in May with a thumping 5-1 win.
With both teams having dismantled the other on their respective patches last year and Everton looking more like a solidly mid-table outfit than relegation fodder, this has the makings of an intriguing contest.
Brighton are once again challenging for a place in the top 6 and have already registered some impressive results away from home, not least their 4-1 win at Wolves in August and their 3-1 triumph at Old Trafford in mid-September.
However, they were also smashed 6-1 by Aston Villa a fortnight later, a sign, perhaps that, just as was the case when Everton thrashed them, Roberto de Zerbi’s side can be prone to falling apart when really tested.
Brighton will be without Solly March (knee), Danny Welbeck (soft-tissue), Julio Espinola (knee) and Jakub Moder (knee), while Pervis Estupian (thigh) and Tariq Lamptey are major doubts and aren’t expected to be back for another week at least.
De Zerbi has an impressively drilled, possession-based team, though, and plenty of talent from which to draw not least hot young striker Evan Ferguson and Kaoru Mitoma, both of who scored on their last visit to Goodison.
With Dominic Calvert-Lewin fit and firing in front of the industrious and unpredictable Abdoulaye Doucouré, Dwight McNeil and Jack Harrison capable of producing goals out of nowhere, Amadou Onana and James Garner forging a decent partnership in midfield, and the defensive due of James Tarkowski and Jarrad Branthwaite providing ever more reliable cover in front of England’s No.1, Jordan Pickford, Everton have threats all of their own.
Providing there are no late injury concerns before the game, Dyche should have an unchanged squad from which to select his starting XI and might only make one change from the team that started against Burnley on Wednesday.
Ashley Young returned from a one-game ban to resume duties at right-back in place of Nathan Patterson and Dyche is likely to fall back on the veteran’s experience again this weekend. Doucouré, meanwhile, should come back into the team at the expense of Arnaut Danjuma who failed to catch the eye against the Clarets.
Kick-off: 3pm, Saturday, 4 November, 2023
Referee: Tim Robinson
VAR: Michael Oliver
Last Time: Everton 1 – 4 Brighton & Hove Albion
Predicted Line-up: Pickford, Young, Tarkowski, Branthwaite, Mykolenko, Onana, Garner, Harrison, McNeil, Doucouré, Calvert-Lewin