Everton take on Hull at Goodison Park on Wednesday night looking to bounce back from Sunday’s defeat at the hands of Tottenham Hotspur.
Spurs were the better team and got a deserved win leaving Evertonians everywhere to reflect on a massively disappointing game. It had started so well when Kevin Mirallas scored an absolute corker to put us 1-0 up but Spurs came back into it and had turned the game on its head by half time thanks to goals from Christian Eriksen and Roberto Soldado. The game was a big opportunity to make a statement of intent but we failed to do that and left London without the 8 game unbeaten run we had arrived with.
It was disappointing to see us not protect the lead we had carved out for ourselves by making silly individual mistakes. Tim Howard should have dealt better with the effort from Harry Kane that resulted in Eriksen scoring the rebound while Gareth Barry’s loss of possession for Soldado’s goal was inexcusable. As well as the individual errors there were some bad individual performances. I don’t think anyone who played on Sunday could claim to have a good game aside from possibly Mirallas and Ross Barkley. The players may have been bad but I think Roberto has to take some of the blame too. He has to realise that Samuel Eto’o, Romelu Lukaku, Steven Naismith (who we missed on Sunday) Mirallas and Barkley (who isn’t a winger and shouldn’t be playing there) won’t all be able to fit in the same team. Another thing Roberto needs to be mindful about is rushing players back from injury. James McCarthy and arguably Lukaku and Seamus Coleman have played when they aren’t fully fit and have suffered injury reoccurrences or poor performances because of it. The latter happened with Barry at the weekend. I think it would have been a smarter move to play a fully fit, in-form Leon Osman. Against Hull on Wednesday Roberto needs to get things right, the players and the team as a whole need to perform and we need to show a reaction by winning and starting another unbeaten run. We can’t afford any more draws or losses at home to teams we are better than.
Hull is one of these teams. The Tigers sit 17th in the table, only outside the relegation zone on goal difference. Steve Bruce’s side have won just twice this campaign although draws away at Arsenal and Liverpool show they are a capable team when they want to be. Losses to teams around or below them like Burnley and Aston Villa are what are costing them. Curtis Davies, Hull’s player of last season, leads a usually a strong unit at the back. They are balanced, resilient and versatile, able to play in a number of formations from 5-3-2 to 4-2-3-1. Scoring goals is definitely their main problem. They haven’t managed to put the ball in the net more than twice in a single match this season and were the league’s lowest scorers in the last campaign. They haven’t won since the start of October and would have been relegated last season if only the second halves of games counted. Everton heads shouldn’t drop if we’re not winning at half time.
Hull brought a lot of players in during the summer but it hasn’t produced much yet. There isn’t much flair in the team with the use of width and crossing heavily emphasised. They only made 9 through balls last season while Ahmed Elmohamady crossed the ball 241 times, a league high. Along with Davies, their three midfield generals, Tom Huddlestone, Jake Livermore and Mohamed Diame are very important to the team. Former Toffee Nikica Jelavic (who will hopefully get a warm reception at Goodison) will lead the line in Abel Hernandez’s absence and will be Hull’s target man on Wednesday night.
We did the double over Hull last season with Steven Pienaar’s lovely winner handing us a 2-1 success at Goodison and goals from Lukaku and McCarthy sealing victory on the last day of the season at the KC Stadium.
McCarthy, John Stones, Antolin Alcaraz and Darron Gibson are all out for us while Naismith is a big doubt. Bryan Oviedo and Arouna Kone both scored for the U’21s on Monday night so whether they are involved or not remains to be seen.
Gaston Ramirez and Abel Hernandez are absent for Hull due to suspension and paternity leave respectively.
EVERTON LIKELY LINE UP: Howard, Coleman, Jagielka, Distin, Baines, Osman, Barry, Mirallas, Barkley, Pienaar, Lukaku (4-2-3-1)
HULL CITY LIKELY LINE UP: McGregor, Dawson, Davies, Chester, Elmohamady, Diame, Huddlestone, Livermore, Robertson, Brady, Jelavic (3-5-2)
Up to the Spurs game, we were playing well and were in great form while Hull has been struggling for a while now. We also have home advantage on our side and should definitely win this game.
PREDICTION: Everton 2-0 Hull.
Eoin Leeson.