Writer Prediction League: Everton at Burnley

Last week, we saw a vast majority of our writers pick an Everton loss for the first time this season. The Toffees trip to the Etihad to play Manchester City was always going to be a difficult one, so Royal Blue Mersey's writers largely predicted failure for Everton.

Naturally then, Ronald Koeman's team put out an solid, if unattractive performance against Pep Guardiola's side and picked up a tough away point against the league's top team. For much of the season, our predictions have been very on or very off -- with this draw, last week was no different. Our mostly incorrect predictions are below, with correct guesses in bold:

Brian and Tom got awarded for their confidence in Everton by picking up two points for predicting a draw (unlike Sean, who picked up no points for his overconfidence in picking an Everton win!).

Brian also correctly chose Lukaku as the match's opening scorer, Tom picked the correct scoreline, and Mike chose the correct man of the match.

With those points awarded, the updated standings look like this:

Brian had spent the last three matchweeks slowly sliding down the table, but with a successful week against Manchester City, he's right back in the thick of things. Similarly, Tom rode his big week to the top of the table, passing by Calvin, Tyler, and me, all of whom are tied for second. Darren, Troy, Brian, and Ryan are all also only within three points of a first-place tie.

Don't expect anyone to make up too much ground this week though, as you'll notice many of our picks for this week's match against Burnley share similarities...

A whopping six writers picked Everton's Belgian striker to both score the opening goal for the Toffees and be the man of the match! Tom also picked Lukaku to be the man of the match, despite picking Bolasie as the opening goalscorer.

Every writer picked the Toffees to win, with eight of ten participants predicting a clean sheet for Stekelenburg and the Everton defense. With such similar picks across the board this week, it is unlikely that anyone will get a big advantage from the results this week.

Of course, such confidence from us can mean only one thing: Lukaku will have a miserable match and Everton will concede three goals -- you heard it here first, folks!