As a year of soccer/football, 2016 has been up and down for Everton fans. The club has sacked a manager, sold a talented, young centerback and not achieved nearly as much success on the pitch as they hoped for. However, it feels that Ronald Koeman, Steve Walsh and Farhad Moshiri are the men to lead the Toffees back to glory, there should be a large influx of talent in the months to come and, overall, 2017 will be a much brighter time to be a Blue.

But first we must finish up 2016. To do that, Everton will face off with bottom-of-the-table Hull City who, at this moment, feel like almost a sure bet for relegation at season’s end. In the Premier League, the Tigers do not have a win since November 6, are losers of three straight matches and have taken just two points in their last seven games. If the Blues do not leave the KCOM Stadium with a win, it will be a failure.

Everton has hit a vein of form, three straight performances they can be proud of that resulted in six points (wins against Arsenal and Leicester with a loss to Liverpool in between). And all against superior competition to what they face on Friday.

Cheers to 2016. Let’s hope for better fortunes in 2017! Come on, you Blues!!

Match Details

Date and start time: Friday, December 30 at 3:00 p.m. EST/12:00 p.m. WST/8:00 p.m. BST

Stadium: KCOM Stadium, Kingston upon Hull, England

Capacity: 25,400

Weather: 45°F/7°C, sunny, 9% chance of rain, 10 mph winds

How to Watch/Listen

TV: NBCSN - United States

Sky Sports 1 - United Kingdom

Radio: EvertonFC.com Match Centre, SiriusXM FC, TalkSport Radio, BBC Radio 5

Live stream: NBC Sports Live Extra, NBC Sports Live Extra TAC Cam, EvertonTV, Sky Go, NOW TV

Information from LiveSoccerTV.com

Lineups

Hull City

Starting XI - Marshall, Robertson, Maguire, Davies, Meyler, Snodgrass, Livermore, Mbokani, Diomande, Dawson, Elmohamady,

Bench - Jakupovic, Huddlestone, Clucas, Maloney, Weir, Henriksen, Mason,

Everton

Starting XI - Robles, Baines, Williams, Jagielka, Coleman, Gueye, Barry, Barkley, Mirallas, Valencia, Lukaku

Bench - Hewelt, Lennon, Cleverley, Funes Mori, Davies, Calvert-Lewin, Holgate