Exclusive: ‘Galey’ on the burning Oxford question
The brilliant Sky Sports pundit and Hammers favourite Tony Gale is our top CanH analyst this week and considers the burning question: “Does Slav stick with Reece Oxford at Goodison Park tomorrow?”
Galey will be appearing in guest CandH blogs regularly and says: “It’s a great site for Irons fans and I’m always delighted to be asked to give my views here.”
Thanks Tone!
Like Spurs Everton have full backs – Baines and Colman – who like to bomb on and whilst Slav’s plan worked on Wednesday it won’t come as a surprise to The Toffees so he may decide to go another way.
From all we are hearing he won’t have Winston Reid, Tomkins or Collins and of course Byram is suspended so he has the choice of purring Antonio, Kouyate, Ogbonna and Cresswell across the back or bringing in Oxford with Cheik moving back into midfield.
He will have two playing out of position if he plays Kouyate AND Antonio so he may well decide to go with young Reece rather than Alex Song.
He showed massive bravery in sending on the teenager against Spurs but that 20 minutes will have done the kid more good than a season in the under 21s.
To choosehim over a Barcelona an Arsenal player is fantastic and personally I hope he goes that way tomorrow although I’m aware that Lukaku could try to bully him.
However, Reece is good, very good and I hope he gets the chance to show it again. If it all gets too much then the Song option is on the bench although I can imagine he got the hump being overlooked on Wednesday night.
It could happen again and should that be the case it means Slav is going with the Academy kid who will be here for years as opposed to a player who I think will be gone at the end of the year.
Given the pressure of the Spurs game and the fact that Everton simply cruised past a very poor Villa side, tomorrow could be very hard for us but there’s an incredible spirit in the squad and I think they could get a point.
I’d be pretty happy with that.
COYI