Match Preview: Everton v Brighton
The Albion are having a good time of ending historical curses recently. Two weeks ago, Graham Potter’s men delivered a first win for 12 years over Plucky Little Bournemouth. Four days later, it was a first ever point from Chelsea at the 10th attempt.
Waiting to be ended this weekend is another terrible run. Brighton travel to Goodison Park, a venue where they’ve never won before to take on an Everton side smarting from an embarrassing FA Cup exit to their cross-city rivals Liverpool.
Whilst we thought that losing 1-0 at home to Championship opponents Sheffield Wednesday was bad, at least it wasn’t a full strength Brighton side suffering a 1-0 defeat to Crystal Palace’s reserves. That’s essentially what happened to the Toffees at Anfield.
Bluenoses will be demanding a reaction, which probably means this game will go one of two ways. Either Everton are fired up to make amends, in which case the Albion are in for a difficult afternoon on Merseyside.
Or their confidence has been completely destroyed having been turned over by their rivals’ stiffs, leaving Brighton well placed to heap further misery upon them.
Which will it be? Our Everton v Brighton preview seeks to find out.
A brief history of Everton
Everton were founded in 1878 as St Domingo, which sounds more like a lap dancing club in Gloucester than a football team. The reason behind this strange name was that the club were actually formed so that members of the Church of St Domingo had a sport to play in the winter alongside their summer cricket escapades.
The Toffees won the first of their nine league titles in 1891 and have spent 116 years competing in the top flight – an English football record. Their heyday came in the 1980s when, under the management of Howard Kendall, Everton won the FA Cup in 1984, the league championship in 1985 and 1987 and the European Cup Winners’ Cup in 1985.
With the side that graced the turf at Goodison, Everton could have been expected to make a real impression on European football. Rivals Liverpool obviously couldn’t have stand for that, and so they went on a rampage in Heysel which resulted in the death of 39 people, mainly Juventus fans. This resulted in English clubs being expelled from European competition, meaning that the Toffee’s greatest team never got the chance to prove themselves on the greatest stage.
Everton this season
Underwhelming is the one word that probably best sums up Everton’s 2019-20 season so far. In a year where the top six looks as weak as it’s ever been, their expensively assembled squad have flattered to deceive. That ultimately cost Marco Silva his job, the Portuguese boss being sacked after less than 18 months in charge.
In his place has come Carlo Ancelotti, a three-times Champions League winner and the first manager ever to win the double with Chelsea. The appointment is quite the coup for the Toffees and the hope must be that nabbing such a talented manager provides the sort of fillip that Brendan Rodgers has brought to Leicester City.
Not that the first few weeks have been plain sailing. There were reports just a few days ago of problems on the training ground, with Everton players said to have been complaining to Ancelotti that his training methods and tactics are stifling them – because Tom Davies, a bloke who looks like an extra from Home & Away, is in the perfect position to criticise one of the finest managers the game has ever seen.
And that’s Ancelotti’s biggest challenge. He’s got a lot of players on his hands on big wages with questionable attitudes who think they are the dog’s bollocks. A big rebuild looks like it will be needed, and there’s no quick fix when that is the case.
Head-to-head
As already noted, Brighton have never won at Goodison Park. Our home record against Everton isn’t much to shout about either if truth be told, with just four victories being registered in Sussex against the Toffees in all competitions. Five games have been drawn while Everton have seven successes under their belts.
Brighton’s head-to-head record with Everton
Last six meetings
• Brighton 3-2 Everton (Premier League, 27/10/19)
• Brighton 1-0 Everton (Premier League, 29/12/18)
• Everton 3-1 Brighton (Premier League, 03/11/18)
• Everton 2-0 Brighton (Premier League, 10/03/18)
• Brighton 1-1 Everton (Premier League, 15/10/17)
• Brighton 1-2 Everton (Division One, 09/04/83)
Despite their pretty ropy record in the fixture, the Albion have won the last two encounters. Both were at the Amex and despite the fact they took place over 10 months apart, we only won four other league games in-between.
Our two trips to Goodison in the Premier League so far haven’t been great. Last season, Lewis Dunk had a bit of a mare in front of watching England manager Gareth Southgate as Everton strolled to a 3-1 victory.
The year before and Anthony Knockaert threw his toys out the pram after the ball accidentally hit him in the face and everyone laughed at him, deciding to try and end Leighton Baines’ career in retaliation. Not his finest moment.
Team news
Potter said in his Everton v Brighton preview that Glenn Murray has recovered from “the knock” that conveniently ruled him out of playing in last week’s FA Cup tie, which could have left him cup tied and therefore less attractive to potential January suitors.
The Albion manager also revealed that Aaron Mooy didn’t train on Thursday after picking up an injury in training. Losing Mooy’s services would be a severe blow to the Seagulls’ chances on Merseyside given that he has been by far and away our most creative player over the past few months.
How Potter covers for Mooy’s absence will be interesting. Pascal Gross replacing him in a like-for-like swap would seem the most obvious answer but given that 4-2-2-2 is often deployed largely to get the best out of Mooy, Potter could shift formations in order to give prominence to a different attacking threat such as Leandro Trossard or, and I can’t believe we’re saying this, Alireza Jahanbakhsh.
As has been the case with Brighton all season under Potter, there’s little point in guessing as nobody knows what will happen. It wouldn’t be a surprise if Potter decided to play David Button as a number 10 because he’s got a shiny head like Mooy. That’s the sort of out-of-the-box thinking we’ve become accustomed to.
Everton’s key players
Everton are able to call upon England’s number one in Jordan Pickford, although he had something of a shocker at the Amex when it came to Gross’ free kick which opened the scoring. Another young English player is striker Dominic Calvert-Lewin. His goals seem to have slipped under the radar slightly – he leads the Everton scoring charts with eight, ahead of more expensive and heralded signings such as Richarlison and Bernard.
Bernard in fact has had something of a shocker, scoring just twice from 12 games. It’s a far cry from when he had that magic watch and could do whatever the fuck he wanted.
A good WeAreBrighton.com memory of Everton away
We found a pub with a yellow submarine last season.
A bad WeAreBrighton.com memory of Everton
Oh yeah, and then one member of the WeAreBrighton.com team was deemed too drunk to enter the stadium by an overzealous steward. Yes, they’d drank two bottles of prosecco on the train up, six pints in Liverpool and only eaten a small pack of sushi all day, but even so the response at Goodison seemed heavy handed. Especially as we’ve previously seen people be so pissed that they’ve fallen asleep for 20 minutes whilst sat on the toilet at Carlisle away. That’s the Premier League for you though.
Our favourite player to play for Brighton and Everton
There must be something about Everton and Brighton that links players who like a drink. Before Shane Duffy and Molly Malone’s, there was Kevin McLeod and The Bull in Ditchling. It’s McLeod’s post-Brighton career that has made him one of our favourites though. Since retiring, he’s turned out for a Sunday League side in Essex who described him as “Liking the post-game activities in the pub on a Sunday afternoon.” What a man.
What we like about Everton
We seemed to upset a few people – both Brighton and Bluenoses – a couple of years ago by mentioning a certain person who went missing in Portugal while wearing an Everton shirt, so it’s probably best we stay clear of the reigning Hide and Seek World Champion in this season’s match preview.
Prediction
As we said at the start of this preview, a tough one to call – so we’ll sit on the fence and go with Everton 1-1 Brighton.
