Football – England – Premier League
Sunday 11th May 2014 – Kickoff: 1500hrs
Sunday brings us the final day of the Premiership season and with it, the same kick-off time for all fixtures on the day which is a rare occurrence indeed! FA Cup finalists Hull City take on an Everton outfit who missed out on a Champions League qualifying spot to Arsenal, and with Hull’s Premier League status now safe, both sides will be playing for lucrative final league positions.
Hull City narrowly avoided relegation as they sit in 16th place and four points above Norwich City who, barring a miracle, will still go down even if they beat Arsenal on Sunday. With Premiership football guaranteed for next season, manager Steve Bruce may well be very tempted to rest a few of his key players in readiness for next weekend’s FA Cup final with Arsenal.
But back to league form, and Hull achieved just two league wins from their last ten which were incidentally over West Brom 2-0 and Swansea City 1-0 (both at home) while they have lost three of their last four with defeats against Arsenal 0-3 at home and 1-3 losses away at both Aston Villa and Manchester United.
Hull’s overall home record stands at 7-4-7 20/19 and whilst they’ve held their own against the teams around them in the division, The Tigers have generally struggled against the top half teams as their home record against them testifies at a poor 1-2-6 7/17.
Visitors Everton will need to pick themselves up to avoid an overall fantastic season fizzling out in poor fashion as The Toffees have lost three of their last four which ended their hopes of attaining a Champions League qualifying spot. Following defeats against Crystal Palace 2-3, Southampton 0-2 and Manchester City 2-3, they’ll now have to make do with a Europa League berth along with either Tottenham or Manchester United.
Everton’s three straight away wins were brought to an end at the St Mary’s Stadium a couple of weeks ago when they lost 0-2 to Southampton, but they’d previously won away at Newcastle United 3-0, Fulham 3-1 and Sunderland 1-0. Everton’s overall away record stands at 7-6-5 21/20 which is pretty good but drilling down a little deeper, their record on the road away at bottom half teams stands at 5-4-0 14/7.
Hull could be forgiven for having one eye on next week’s FA Cup final and this may well provide an opportunity for Everton to sneak the final points of the season with the lethal attacking threat of Lukaku up front; I recommend giving the quarter ball on Everton but they could win this perhaps 2-1.
Pick: Everton AH-0.25 @ 1.71 Pinnacle
