By CandH blogger Allen Cummings
With the end of the season fast approaching, Saturday evening sees the visit of Everton to the London Stadium in the first of our three remaining significant home games.
The Toffees currently sit in 11th place on 40 points – two points behind us, and a single point off Leicester City in 10th spot, the next visitors to the LS on the 20th April. A win is vital to bolster our push for a top ten finish, and at the same time put a dent in the Merseysiders own ambitions.
Games following on from international breaks are notoriously difficult to predict, with players returning from the four corners of the globe, and no-one really knowing what kind of physical or even mental condition they will be in.
The amazing finale to our last home game against Huddersfield at least means we go into this encounter on the back of a victory. The nature of the victory was somewhat bizarre to say the least, but it certainly left everyone, players and supporters alike, on an incredible high.
One of our best away performances of the season so far was the 3-1 victory at Goodison Park back in September and of course we triumphed by the same score line at home in our final game of last season.
That was a victory many saw as particularly sweet because Sam Allardyce was the Everton manager at that time, and it was seen as the result that brought down the curtain on his tenure at the club. So Saturday we’ll be looking for a hat-trick of successive wins.
Obviously, until players report back for duty, their fitness won’t be fully known but the significant influence Samir Nasri’s introduction had on the final outcome against Huddersfield surely means he’ll be a starter on Saturday.
Whether that will be alongside fellow playmaker Manuel Lanzini, or maybe in place of him who knows? It’s also likely Chicharito will start, following his two-goal rescue mission, meaning Arnie, who scored for Austria last weekend, back on the bench.
Pablo Zabaleta did nothing to suggest he shouldn’t keep his place at right back but we could possibly be ready to see a return for ‘The General’ in the centre of defence.
Fabian Balbuena regaining his place alongside Issa Diop, meaning Angelo Ogbonna, despite his goal in the last game, stepping down, on the back of a particularly shaky defensive performance.
So the Saturday’s team could look like this: Fabianski, Zabaleta, Diop, Balbuena, Cresswell, Noble, Rice, Nasri, Anderson, Hernandez, Antonio