It's a far bigger game for Everton than Liverpool. Liverpool have nothing to prove. Champions League winners. Premier League winners. Club World Cup winners. UEFA Super Cup winners. Liverpool are one of the best teams in the world and will challenge for the PL no matter a couple of bad results in fixtures with no crowds and key players missing. Everton have achieved nothing despite outspending Liverpool for years. A win for Everton means Ancelotti has a chance of achieving something this season. A draw or a loss for Everton and it's the same old story and Don Carlo just got lucky in playing #nomarks in the first 4 games.
This game will be quite interesting. Firmino for us and james and richarilson will by struggling to get back for the game and times zones plus covid might not add up. Mina picked up a knock at weekend. I don't know when he returned. Digne picked up a little knock as well last night but may be fit? coleman is injured for sure? Pickford still looks a clown for england. so he matches adrian nicely. TAA, Robertson and gomez did not play midweek so get a little boost in coming back to squad. Henderson got a few minutes here and there. Allan who was out may be back, that was thier target. we have thaigo back as well. All in all it shapes up to be a "better" game than the first game back after lockdown where everton parked the bus. This time round a real game of football might even break out. Everton might be the slightly weakened side compared to pre international break as 3 of the back 4 they last played are doubts and two of the front 3 have to be struggling to get back in time on the other hane we can't get any worse than last time out so will have a few back with just fabinho and firmino currently struggling to get back in time. My prediction is watch for mane, a false 9 role for him might be in the offing with jota on the left (If he tests negative lol) if we dare start the derby with a lightweight like minamino we might as well also start joe gomez and give everton a 2 goal head start.
Wasn't sure where to stick this, here will do.... Roberto Firmino’s statistics in the league over the last 3 seasons are interesting. Fewer goals — 15 in 2017-18, 12 in 2018-19 and nine in 2019-20 — despite shots being up: 84, 75 and last season 99. He has a poorer shot conversion rate: 18%, 16% and 9% cent. He created a chance every 58 minutes last season and an assist every 375 minutes, compared to a chance every 49 minutes in 2017-18 and an assist every 397 minutes. Firmino has two assists already in this campaign.
This has become a very interesting game now. It’s a combination of how far off last years pace are we, if at all, combined with how much have EFC improved. Too many other variable to guess at.....we’ll soon see where we are at.
This is the thing with Bobby - we can defend his lack of goals as long as his link up play and creativity are still good. But the issue I have is that his overall link play is suffering as well, whereby simple passes are misplaced or he dwells on it for too long and kills the attack. But to go back to the lack of goals for a second - one of the defences for his lack of goals is his selflessness which is actually not true. He has a lot of shots on goal (on par with Mane and Salah, and others in the league) and he also has amongst the highest number of big chances across the league. His lack of goals isn't due to being selfless, it's because he's a very poor finisher. With this said, he will score vs Everton.
It's really weird because after the Chelsea and Arsenal game, it felt like we were back on it (albeit a few annoying individual errors). I maintain that the 7-2 was a freak result which was started by idiotic errors and compounded by bad luck. We are the PL champions, we were CL champions not long ago, and still the strongest team in the league and Europe. Mane, Thiago, Hendo and possibly Matip are all back for this game. So I'm confident (famous last words)
A 7-2 result is always a fluke of sorts, albeit the fact that they undid you virtually every time they attacked wasn’t a fluke. I watched the Arsenal game and they were constantly getting into positions where a single well played ball in behind your ridiculously high back line would have seen them get in behind. Only until they brought Ceballos on 2nd half they had no one of sufficient quality to play the right ball consistently and when they did their forwards were often lazily being caught offside. All Villa did, was play the right ball with sufficient quality and had their forwards stood a yard or so ahead of your line, so comfortably onside, but right on the front foot when the ball was played, so your defenders were caught square on, facing the ball, whilst faced with forwards sprinting in behind and onto quality passes. That’s not a fluke, that’s merely a side doing their home work and executing a game plan perfectly. If Klopp continues with a line that high (and it appears to be markedly higher so far this season for some reason), sides will merely try & mirror what Villa did. Some weeks you’ll get away with, some weeks you won’t.
With the lack of pre season , covid cases and the International break it is difficult to have any idea about how we will perform . I do expect us to attack down our left if only to try and push Rodriguez back and if he doesn't track back we should have a 2v1 .
Yeah the line has been creeping higher over time though i thought that started last season and if your line discipline or pressure on the ball slacken you can / will be exposed . Adrian also doesn't seem as comfortable with the sweeper keeper idea as Allison which doesn't help atm .
