Everton v Brighton: The Toffees view with ToffeeWeb

Before Brighton head to Merseyside to take on Everton, we are ready to admit that we a little bit jealous of the guys at ToffeeWeb. Whilst the Albion are enjoying a decent start to the 2020-21 Premier League season and have made a couple of exciting captures, Everton fans are living the dreams of any club outside of the top six.

Midway through last season, the Toffees completed the coup of appointing a world class manager in Carlo Ancelotti. He has now brought in a series of world class players who – whisper it quietly – might finally put Everton back in the mix for a top four finish.

They have three wins from three in the league so far and are into the last eight of the Carabao Cup. These are early days, but 2020-21 is shaping up to be a memorable season at Goodison Park.

To find out more about it, we had a chat with Lyndon from ToffeeWeb, who took us through those new signings, the buzz around Everton and whether the Albion could cause an upset.

It’s been quite a summer at Goodison Park. Talk us through the new arrivals and who you are most excited about?
The interesting thing about the main summer signings so far is that if you’d asked a group of Evertonians which they thought would be the best of the three, you might not have got a consensus.

James Rodriguez was obviously the stand-out in terms of reputation and simple world-class ability — to be honest, we’re all still pinching ourselves that he’s even at our club — but there were reservations over his injury record and the warnings from some pundits that he was “past it”.

But Everton fans love an ankle-biting midfielder in the Peter Reid mould so many feel that Allan, whom we signed from Napoli, might be the most important while the legs and box-to-box presence that Abdoulaye Doucouré give us is also a massive addition to the side.

Essentially, Carlo Ancelotti took a hard six month look at the midfield he inherited from Marco Silva, came to the obvious conclusion that it was nowhere near good enough and fixed it with three signings that have completely transformed the team.

Our Director of Football, Marcel Brands, also uncovered a gem in Niels Nkounkou, a free agent from Marseille, who has been a revelation at left back in the Carabao Cup games, so our close-season business has been hugely successful.

For me personally, James is the most exciting; he just makes the game look so effortless and he looks as though he’s been playing in England for years!

The obvious question to ask next then is what has this transfer business done to expectation levels and what constitutes a successful season now for Everton?
We Evertonians have seen too many false dawns to get too carried away but, by the same token, things feel very different this time. Despite his pedigree, Ronald Koeman was still pretty untried at the top level in English football and Marco Silva was a laudable punt by the club to try and build something with an enterprising young manager.

Ancelotti is a proven winner and now he is demonstrating that he might be able to build a team as well as being able to polish successful sides and make them even better.

So expectations have obviously been raised considerably based on our 100% start to the season and the more we keep winning, the more you feel our target must be breaking into the top four and perhaps finally winning another trophy.

Certainly top six in the Premier League looks doable right now, but much might depend on injuries and whether we can keep our best players fit.

Dominic Calvert-Lewin has been in some form recently. What’s changed in his game to turn him into one of the Premier League’s best strikers so far?
Calvert-Lewin is one of the hardest-working players around, I think, and much of his success has been down to that — getting his head down and grafting, often doing the thankless job of playing as an isolated striker running the channels for a struggling team.

He’s always had natural finishing ability but he has worked with Duncan Ferguson and now Carlo Ancelotti on his all-round game and it’s really starting to pay off.

His movement, positioning and awareness have come on leaps and bounds and when you add in players like Rodriguez who create a handful of great chances per game, it’s all come together for him.

Where are the weaknesses in this current Everton side?
There is still a lack of depth in quality at right back where Seamus Coleman is playing out of his skin again whilst his back up Jonjoe Kenny might not be able to offer the same levels.

With Moise Kean struggling to adapt to England following his move from Juventus last year, we do need an alternative goalscorer in cases Calvert-Lewin or Richarlison are injured.

The biggest concern might be in goal, however. Jordan Pickford had an excellent first season at Everton but has been on the wane since and some of his performances during project restart were pretty alarming.

He seems to lack focus at times and dropped a few clangers at the back end of last season, but Ancelotti has given him his backing and with no real competition for his place, we’ll crack on with him and hope he rediscovers his best form.

There was one win apiece in our games last season with the fixture at the Amex being particularly controversial. What did you guys at ToffeeWeb make of Brighton v Everton in 2019-20?
Brighton 3-2 Everton at the Amex was obviously a painful one from Everton’s perspective, with a really controversial VAR call for the penalty that allowed Brighton to make it 2-2, and then the late own goal by Lucas Digne.

We had come off the high of beating West Ham United at Goodison Park where Marco Silva finally appeared to have found the right system but Bernard going off injured put a bit of a spanner in the works and we didn’t play that well until Dominic Calvert-Lewin came off the bench to put us ahead.

I wasn’t confident we’d have been able to hold out because Brighton are an inventive and dangerous side but the penalty decision (which the Premier League later admitted was wrong) was the killer.

The return game at Goodison was the first one after Everton’s awful capitulation to Liverpool’s kids in the FA Cup and I think we were just looking for a reaction, which Ancelotti got. If I recall correctly, we were weren’t brilliant on the day but we got the 1-0 win.

Who is winning the title this season, who are the top four and who do you fancy to go down?
Unfortunately, it’s hard to look beyond Liverpool given the way Manchester City have started. I think the expectation was that the Reds might not be able to keep up the intensity with which they played the last two seasons but unless City can get into a groove, I think Jurgen Klopp’s mob will have enough to win it again.

Certainly Chelsea looked like they might challenge for the top this season — and they still might when all their players are available and settled — but they’re off to a shaky start; all isn’t well at Manchester United and Arsenal are still in transition mode.

Have the likes of Leicester or even Everton got enough to pose a real threat in a title race over a long season? Probably not.

7) Finally, what is the ToffeeWeb prediction for Everton v Brighton?
I think it will be another tight one. Brighton like to attack and, as I say, have some dangerous and tricky players like Tariq Lamptey and Leandro Trossard who might give our rather one-paced defence some problems.

There could be quite a few goals but I think Everton will have the extra quality to win, even if Richarlison doesn’t make it because of the injury he picked up in the Carbao Cup game against West Ham on Wednesday. 3-2 to Everton!

Thanks to Lyndon for taking the time to speak to us before Everton v Brighton. You can keep up with Everton’s challenge for a top six spot on ToffeeWeb and don’t forget to give them a follow on Twitter.