Everton are back in action tonight with an away clash against Newcastle United.
Frank Lampard’s side head into this game off the back of two defeats against Manchester United and Tottenham Hotspur. With that in mind, it’s safe to say that everyone at the Merseyside club will not want to incur a third defeat in a row tonight against the Magpies.
In terms of what the starting XI could look like for the Toffees, here’s our prediction, with three changes in personnel and a different formation from that which started against Tottenham.
In goal, despite giving away a penalty which put Spurs ahead last weekend, we feel that Jordan Pickford will keep his place in the team to try and make up for his error last time out.
Revering to a back four, we predict that Lampard will stick with a quartet who started against Antonio Conte’s side, with James Tarkowski and Conor Coady as the two centre-backs and the two full-backs of Seamus Coleman on the right and Vitaliy Mykolenko shifting out to the left after playing as part of a central three on Saturday.
Moving to midfield, we think that Alex Iwobi and Amadou Onana will keep their places in the side, but Idrissa Gueye could make way for James Garner to come in for his first league start for Everton.
At the weekend, Gueye picked up the joint-second lowest match rating (6.4/10) out of any Toffees player to start the game according to SofaScore.
Then for the three attacking positions, we can see Demarai Gray keeping his place on the right flank but with Anthony Gordon coming back in on the left after serving his suspension against Spurs, with Dwight McNeil dropping out.
Finally, after he played 24 minutes off the substitutes’ bench in north London, we think that Lampard will give Dominic Calvert-Lewin his first start of the campaign after recovering from injury.
Hailed as an “exceptional” player by journalist Pete Graves, the 25-year-old could be an ideal replacement for Neal Maupay, who picked up an even lower match rating (6.3/10) against Spurs than Gueye, which would make this seem a simple swap for Lampard to make.
