Everton vs Crystal Palace: Writer Prediction League

Remember club football? That thing we do for 3 weeks at a time from August until Christmas?

Well, it’s back this weekend! And we weirdly have reasons to feel pretty good about Everton’s chances at it!

That strange optimism has crept in following the Toffees 2-1 victory over Leicester City before the international break — and the fact that this weekend’s match comes at Goodison Park against a Benteke-less, Meyer-less, Sorloth-less, and (maybe) Zaha-less Crystal Palace side certainly doesn’t hurt.

Before we look ahead though, let’s look back at our predictions from the Leicester match, which were decidedly lacking in optimism.

I don’t want to go out of my way to pat myself on the back...oh wait yes I definitely do — I was the only writer to successful pick Everton as the winner against the Foxes two weeks ago, and managed to guess the correct scoreline as well.

Two writers picked Richarlison as the opening goalscorer correctly, while Adam D. had Sigurdsson correctly as the Everton man of the match. Good week to be an Adam.

Those results led to a bit of a change in the prediction league standings.

I jumped into the lead on the back of my four-point week (WOOOOOOOOOOOOO!), while Adam D. and Matthew C. slightly closed the gap on the top-of-the-table group.

As we look ahead to Palace this weekend, I feel it’s important to note that since we started doing the prediction league at RBM, Everton traditionally has not done well in matches where we’re particularly confident in them. That said...

Two writers have this match ending in a draw, but the rest of us have Everton pulling out the victory by varying scorelines.

Richarlison is an overwhelming favorite to open the scoring (as a unit, it looks as though we think he’ll start up top again), with Gylfi Sigurdsson and Theo Walcott each grabbing two votes.

Man of the Match voting is a little more evenly distributed, with Richarlison and Gylfi picking up four votes, Bernard with three, and Walcott with two.