Next up: Sunderland vs Everton

Everton don't get to play again until Monday night, when they travel to the Stadium of Light to take on high-flying Sunderland, who have slipped down to 4th place in the Premier League table amongst the group of six teams with five wins each.

There's more talk this week, suggesting that David Moyes will at long last adopt a different approach for Everton's attacking forward play, as the goals really do seem to have dried up.

Moyes appears to be gaining more trust in Merlin Röhl and what he can bring to the table, although with limited minutes on the pitch, he has been unremarkable so far. And the problem Moyes has created by dropping Dwight McNeil and moving Iliman Ndiaye out to the right wing means goals from those two are sorely missing, even though Ndiaye is our leading scorer, with 3 goals. 

Charly Alcaraz is another player who appears to at least possess the ability to test the goalkeeper, if not actually score some fine goals. But he too has received the cold Scottish shoulder, expected to perform miracles in the last few minutes of games after finally being instructed to get off the bench just moments before the final whistle.  

The attacking players that leaves on the pitch, Grealish and Dewsbury-Hall, both have really poor records in the goal-scoring department, while the proclivities of our two centre-forwards aren't really worth mentioning in this context. 

And then there is Tyler Dibling... the poor kid who must be wondering if moving 200 miles north has transported him to a different universe where his highly valued skills don't quite seem to work anymore.

The conundrum for David Moyes in coming up with a team selection, formation, and strategic approach to break down almost impenetrable Premier League defences will be enough to turn his hair grey...      Wait a minute!

And on top of this puzzler, with paranoia endemic amongst the Everton fan base who had to suffer the indignity of set-piece humiliation by Micky van de Ven last Saturday at home against Tottenham Hotspur, Everton and their short-armed minnow in goal will now be subjected to a veritable set-piece onslaught.

At least the theory goes that whatever caused us grief in the last match will now dictate our fortunes for the rest of the season. It's understandable how such simplistic logic develops, largely as a knee-jerk reaction to a disappointing loss, but it seems to ignore the quite remarkable statistic that, up until that point, Everton had not conceded a single goal so far this season from a set piece!

Now I'm no football analyst or strategist — I just call it the way I see it, as it's played out on the field. And while there are some similarities that can no doubt be identified in the way the team sets up and the gameplan is executed, every game I watch in the Premier League appears to my simple eye to be unique.

We don't know what's going to happen. Now this kinda flies in the face of the gambling and betting ethos that seems to have taken over football, from Sky TV and their maddening bombardment of gambling adverts, to shirt sponsorship, to pitchside advertising... it's relentless in selling the dream that Joe Public can predict what is going to happen in a football match -- or better still, in six football matches!  

But I can assure you with great confidence, you cannot predict what will happen next Monday. Well, a few will get it right... but the vast majority of you won't. And you know what? That's exactly what the bookies know, and that's why they are rolling in money... your money. 

But enough of that soap-box proselytising. My point really is that we have not suddenly developed a vulnerability that is now going to sink us without trace.  Yes, we will almost certainly concede more goals to set pieces, maybe against Sunderland.... but maybe not.

Maybe some completely different controversy or strategic flaw will grip us next week. We just don't know. It kinda makes a match preview rather difficult to write, or it may just explain why I'm not very good at writing them.

The other reason, of course, is I know next to nothing about the opposition we will face at The Stadium of Light. I didn't even know the name of their manager... Regis Le Bris. No, sorry. Never heard of him. But he must be doing something right. Unless you believe that winning football matches, at least for Everton, seems mostly down to luck — be it good or bad.     

I think we'll need some good luck on Monday.

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