Everton at Brighton and Hove Albion: Writer Prediction League

After a much-needed break, Everton returns to the pitch this weekend, facing newly-promoted Brighton and Hove Albion. At the start of the season, you might have thought that making predictions for this match would be pretty open and shut, but after a miserable week against Apollon Limassol and Burnley before the break, things look pretty bleak.

Our predictions for the Apollon and Burnley matches were overwhelming positive, with the RBM crew buoyed by prior victories over Sunderland and Bournemouth. We have some regrets about that optimism.

Check out our picks from those matches below, with correct picks in bold.

Our writers collected a whopping four points from those two matches. I correctly picked Nikola Vlasic as the Everton MOTM against Apollon, Matt correctly predicted a draw against the Cyprian club, and Calvin got Dominic Calvert-Lewin right as the Everton MOTM against Burnley.

With such overwhelming failure from both Everton and our writers, our prediction league standings have hardly changed from before the break.

Calvin and Mike are still running away at the top of the table, though Matt and I ever-so-slightly inched closer to the upper echelon.

Everton’s struggles before the break have led to a relatively varied collect of picks against BHA, at least as far as the outcome of the match is concerned.

Of the 12 participating writers this week, two picked a Brighton victory, three a draw, and seven an Everton victory. Six of the seven who predicted victory also predicted an Everton clean sheet (myself included), perhaps banking on Tomer Hemed’s absence through suspension causing problems for Brighton up top.

Two names jump out a lot in opening scorer and Everton MOTM voting — Dominic Calvert-Lewin and Gylfi Sigurdsson. DCL picked up five votes for opening goalscorer and man of the match, while the Icelandic talisman nabbed four votes in those categories.