Writer Prediction League: Everton vs. West Ham United

Once again, Everton let us down last week in more ways than one.

The Toffees' 2-1 loss at Burnley was supremely disappointing for all Everton supporters, who had hoped that after an impressive draw against Manchester City, things were once again moving in the right direction. Instead, Ronald Koeman's team gave up two relatively weak goals and failed to create enough chances to top a recently-promoted team.

It was even more disappointing if you staked your pride on predicting the outcome of the match, but came up with these predictions...

No one picked Sam Vokes as the opening goalscorer or Yannick Bolasie as Everton's man of the match (though Tom and I picked him to score the opening goal -- so close!). Burnley's victory eliminated any possibility of a correct guess at final score, so none of us picked up any points last week.

Given that, the RBM writer prediction league scoreboard remains the same as it was last week.

Tom remains on top of the table, with Calvin, Tyler, and I only one point back. At the other end of the board, Matt somehow only has 11 points through nine weeks (sorry Matt!).

This week, we have perhaps the most varied winner and scoreline predictions we've had all season, so there's a decent chance we'll see some movement on the leaderboard next week! Those picks are as follows:

Romelu Lukaku is the runaway choice for opening goalscorer, with seven of 10 writers relying on the big Belgian to get Everton going. Our writers were apparently impressed with Yannick Bolasie's man-of-the-match performance last week, as three have chosen him to repeat this week, making him the joint-leader in that category alongside Lukaku.

Four writers picked an Everton win against West Ham, with another four slightly less confident and predicting a draw against the Hammers. Calvin is the lone pessimist this week -- he picked a 3-2 loss with Michail Antonio striker first for West Ham.