Everton at Chelsea, Leicester City: Writer Prediction League

Everything in the Everton world over the past month has revolved around Ronald Koeman, his managerial shortcomings, and his future with the club — with our weekly predictions being no different!

Last week, with Everton facing a must-win match against Lyon and a tough fixture against Arsenal, we had little to no confidence in the Toffees, largely because Koeman was at the helm. With the Dutch manager out now, we’re in a bit of an uncertain situation regarding our predictions for this week.

Let’s start by reviewing our picks from last week, which were sadly quite accurate.

Picking Everton to lose last week was the trendy thing to do, so must of us picked up a solid chunk of points. Calvin was the only writer to correct predict the scoreline of either match, calling a 2-1 Lyon victory on Thursday. Five writers also correctly predicted Lyon’s Nabil Fekir would open the scoring in that Europa League match.

Calvin’s solid week put him even further out of reach atop our prediction league standings.

Calvin and Mike both continue to run away with the league, while the rest of our writers are forming a very clear mid-table group and bottom-table group (new writers Callum and Zach take the cake in that department).

Looking ahead to this week, uncertainty abounds for a variety of reasons. The most obvious cause is the arrival of interim coach David Unsworth, but Everton’s opponents enter this week’s matches with some big question marks as well.

Chelsea has a paper-thin squad, so it appears almost certain that Antonio Conte will use several youth players in his lineup against Everton in the Carabao Cup on Wednesday, making a match that should be very challenging into a potentially winnable one.

Sunday’s trip to Leicester City will be a match between two teams that recently sacked their managers, raising questions about what kind of opposition the Toffees will be facing.

Put all these factors together, and you get these picks:

The Chelsea match is nearly evenly split among our writers — five have predicted Everton victories, seven Chelsea victories. The uncertainty surrounding both teams’ lineups is apparent, with Oumar Niasse, Dominic Calvert-Lewin, Alvaro Morata, and Michy Batshuayi all getting votes to open the scoring, even though likely only two of the four will start!

The Leicester match brought a bit more agreement among our writers — eight foresee a draw between the Toffees and Foxes. Jamie Vardy was a very popular pick to open the scoring, with Gylfi Sigurdsson also getting substantial votes.