Everton Preview: Three points vital 28 January, 2009

Tonight is going to be a masive game, with Aston Villa winning last night they’ve gone six points clear of us. We need to win tonight to stop Villa pulling away from us. 4th place is absolutely vital, I hate to think the consequences of us not qualifying for the Champions League.

Everton are not going to be easy to beat though, by no means. In fact a draw against them wouldn’t usually be considered too bad of a result. We just can’t think about that though thanks to the position we’ve got ourselves in and the unbelievable luck Aston Villa are having at the moment.

We’re going to have to be well up for tonight. We didn’t play well enough on Sunday so tonight we need to get things right. We will be 100% full strength tonight, we cannot afford to rest anyone.

Gael Clichy will come back into the defense but will William Gallas? Toure and Djourou have done alright together but I suspect Wenger will rotate a bit and play Gallas. Denilson will come into the starting line-up after sitting out Sunday’s game. I’m hoping that Song will partner him allowing Diaby to take Eboue’s position out wide. Not because I am a big fan of Song and Diaby but because I don’t want Eboue anywhere near the team…I suspect he will be though. If it were up to me I’d have Wilshere out on the right but I just don’t see Wenger doing that.

Here’s my guess anyways:

Almunia (c)
Sagna – Djourou – Gallas – Clichy
Nasri – Song – Denilson – Diaby
Adebayor – van persie

Nothing more to add to what I’ve said above about the team apart from this – I miss Cesc Fabregas.

Everton have quite a few injury problems but are coping well even still. They’re out of strikers and have resorted to using Cahill up top but he has done really well. Arteta has been scoring a few recently too and Lescott had been deadly coming forward. So they still possess a scoring threat. I’m worried that we will concede in this game. In fact I would put money on us not keeping a clean sheet. What worries me is how we will react to that – Do we curl up and cringe or do we stand up tall and fight? It just depends on how certain individuals feel.

We’re relying on Robin van Persie again tonight, he’s going to have his work cut out for him. Wenger planned on only playing him for an hour on Sunday but that wasn’t possible. Hopefully he is fit enough to start tonight, I’d be worried if he didn’t. Samir Nasri is another creative output, he’s been playing quite well recently, especially when he plays through the middle. On Sunday he was kept out wide and I’m not really sure why seeing as we were chasing a goal. I can see him coming inside tonight.

I’m really up for this one – I just hope the players are too. We kick off at 8:00pm tonight but it’s not on TV over here in the UK. Going to have to try and find a decent stream to watch it over the internet.

Enjoy the game people. Thanks for reading.