You can’t beat luck. That was the moral of the story at Goodison last Saturday, as Sunderland received absurd amounts of good fortune on their way to a 2-0 victory. Danny Graham scored for goodness sake. Everton weren’t great, but were by far the better team and did not deserve to lose the game. That said, the game highlighted once again how much we struggle to put the ball in the back of the net. Lukaku hasn’t scored from open play in the league since January, an extremely poor return, and there doesn’t seem to anyone else able to step up to the plate consistently when he’s not firing. This makes the manager’s admission that we won’t be looking for a new striker in the summer all the more baffling.
And so we move to West Ham, in the battle for European qualification. Yes, you read that right. If you have been living under a rock for the past couple of weeks, it turns out that despite a disastrous domestic campaign, Everton still have a chance of qualifying for next seasons Europa League, through the mysterious backdoor that is the ‘Fair Play Table’. Contrary to common assumption, this table is not just about how many yellow or red cards a team gets, but also entirely subjective parameters like ‘positive play’, ‘behaviour towards officials’ and ‘respect towards opponents’. Apparently, several shadowy officials attend each game and report their findings back to, er, whoever they report them back to. Some numbers are then seemingly plucked out of thin air and put into a table. It’s been around a few years and I’ve always been vaguely aware of it, but the fact Liverpool currently sit top suggests it’s a complete nonsense.
Nevertheless, as those loveable reds will almost certainly qualify for Europe through the traditional method, it’s down to us and West Ham to see who can be nicest to one another. Should we prevail, it would mean playing qualifiers from the start of July. Despite Martinez saying we’ll “embrace” the competition once again, he has also said he’ll play the kids and, as it looks like it will clash with our pre-season preparations in Singapore, he won’t even bother managing the team in any potential qualifiers, presumably leaving it to someone like David Unsworth or Kevin Sheedy.
You could do a whole article on the pros and cons of the Europa League, but it’s clearly hampered us this season, and qualifying through some mysterious backdoor doesn’t sound too appealing. I wouldn’t be too disappointed should we miss out.
Anyway, this is the fourth time we’ll play West Ham this season. After beating them at Goodison in the league, the FA Cup 3rd round tie went the entire distance. That crossbar is probably still shaking following Joel’s penalty.
After an impressive start, the wheels have predictably fallen off the West Ham bandwagon since the turn of the year. The second half of the season has been a struggle for Sam Allardyce and the Hammers. A bit of a legend in his own lunchtime, “Big Sam” once claimed he was more suited to Real Madrid than Blackburn. Despite possessing such qualities, he has only managed to win 3 league games in 2015. Their significant drop off means any sort of victory for the blues on Saturday would put us above West Ham and back into the top 10.
Alex Song is set to return after making a substitute appearance against Aston Villa last weekend, whilst top scorer Diafra Sakho and Andy Carroll are out for the rest of the season.
For Everton, Leighton Baines is heading for ankle surgery, meaning Luke Garbutt will almost certainly get his chance at left back. Howard will retain his place in goal, although I would like to see Joel given an opportunity to build on what he did earlier in the season. Coleman, Stones and Jagielka will complete the back four along with Garbutt. In midfield, I’d like to see Barkley played deeper but we all know that’s not going to happen if Barry is fit. McCarthy, Barry, Lennon, Barkley and Mirallas or Osman will make up the midfield. Hopefully Lennon, for which this will be his last game it seems, goes out on a high. Lukaku will be up top. Despite his lack of goals recently, he’s scored in every game for Everton against West Ham. If that continues, he’ll be the first Everton player to reach 20 goals in a season since Yakubu in 2008.
It’s at that stage where we are all just waiting for the season to end, and as a result I can’t really think of a witty, succinct conclusion to this preview.
So, up the Toffees.
