Football – England – Premier League
Saturday 30th August 2014 – Kickoff: 1730hrs
Everton have started their new Premier League campaign with two draws; a 2-2 draw away at Premiership new-boys Leicester City at the King Power Stadium, then a 2-2 draw at Goodison Park with Arsenal last Saturday.
But Roberto Martinez’s men could quite easily have been sitting on top of the division right now as they conceded a late equaliser at Leicester and held a seemingly unassailable 2-0 lead at Goodison over The Gunners last week only to ‘lose’ 2-2. However, Everton are a tough bunch of lads and even though they’ve effectively seen four points fly out of the window, they’ll dust themselves off ready for Chelsea this afternoon I daresay.
New signing Samuel Eto’o has recently arrived in merseyside, but he’s unlikely to feature against his former club this afternoon due to insufficient training time. Lukaku is expected to start despite limping off against Arsenal while winger Atsu (currently on loan from Chelsea) is ineligible.
Midfielder Steven Pienaar has been ruled out with a groin injury so Leon Osman is expected to take his place alongside Gareth Barry and Mirallas. Incidentally, Everton held a good record at home against lower half opposition at Goodison Park last season, losing just once on home turf.
Onto Chelsea, and they’ve basically done what’s been expected of them thus far in this new Premiership season with two relatively ‘easy’ games to start their campaign off with wins against two of the promoted teams from the Championship – a 3-1 win at Turf Moor against Burnley was swiftly followed with a solid 2-0 home win over Leicester City.
This afternoon though, they face one of the ‘old guard’ of England’s top flight and this will be Chelsea’s first real test of the new season against one of the sides expected to be occupying one of the top six places come May.
Jose Mourinho may have to do without the services of a couple of his strikers also this afternoon with leading goalscorer Diego Costa apparently suffering from a hamstring from a training session while there are doubts over Schurrle’s fitness. Didier Drogba of course will slot into a starting role if either is sidelined.
Chelsea’s form away from home at top half opposition last season was actually an indifferent 3-3-3 9/7, so today’s contest is by no means cut-and-dried.
Everton proved hard to beat at Goodison Park last season with just three defeats to their name, and a point here today wouldn’t be the end of the world against one of the league’s heavyweights who could be a serious challenger to Manchester City’s title. I’m therefore going to back The Toffees not to lose this one, it could well end up a draw perhaps 1-1.
Pick: Everton AH+0.5 @ 1.78 Pinnacle
