Everton at Southampton: Writer Prediction League

Everton’s march to mediocrity continues, and good bloggers that we are, the Royal Blue Mersey staff is back once again to solemnly make their predictions for the Toffees’ upcoming match.

Last week, against league-worst Crystal Palace, we were relatively optimistic on the whole, a mistake that several of our writers paid for. This week, with a trip to Southampton in the cards, our writers are feeling less confident.

Let’s start with a review of last week’s predictions, as they pertained to Everton’s 2-2 home draw against Palace.

Calvin, once again, was the big winner last week, correctly predicting Oumar Niasse as Everton’s man of the match, the result as a draw, and 2-2 as the final score.

Unsurprisingly, nobody picked James McArthur to open the scoring last weekend, so no points were earned there.

With his strong week, Calvin surged back to the top of the leaderboard 12 weeks into the Prediction League season.

This week, Everton heads on the road to play Southampton, another club in the midst of an underwhelming season. A few patterns emerged in our predictions for Sunday’s match.

The Saints have had their own struggles with scoring goals this season, so several of our writers have opted to pick Everton players to score the opening goal, despite the fact the majority of us have Southampton winning or the match ending in a draw.

Dominic Calvert-Lewin is a popular pick for first goalscorer, given the absence of Oumar Niasse due to suspension. Jordan Pickford is a popular man of the match candidate, which usually means that none of us think any of the outfield players will do anything of note in the match!

In terms of results, a Southampton victory is the most popular choice, but three writers are picking draws, with another three calling an Everton victory.