Everton v Southampton: Live GameThread

Everton kick off a string of games that start with Southampton and include Wigan, QPR and Liverpool. I would be disappointed if we came away with anything less than 8 points from that stretch but to stay a top team we would probably need either 9 or 10 points.

It's all nice, with our current Premier League form, to talk about beating all these teams, but in reality Everton seems to underachieve in these stretches. We know we can beat the Man Us and the Man Citys of the world but we struggle especially against lower tier clubs and capture way too many draws.

We will know after this stretch if Everton truly is an elite team this year, or just continuing their incredibly-inconsistent enigma-form.

We shall see... COYB!!

Everton Starting XI: Howard, Baines, Jagielka, Heitinga, Neville, Osman, Pienaar, Coleman, Fellaini, Mirallas, Jelavic

Subs: Mucha, Oviedo, Distin, Gueye, Vellios, Anichebe, Duffy

Southampton Starting XI: Gazzaniga, Clyne, Yoshida, Fonte, Lambert, Davis, Rodriguez, Ramirez, Ward-Prowse, Lallana, Richardson

Subs:

As usual, comment below.