Everton vs Newcastle: Writer Prediction League

At the moment Sunday’s Merseyside derby kicks off, Everton will begin a stretch of eight matches in 31 days — just short of a match every four days if you’re arithmetically challenged.

It’s an insane run that features away matches against the two best clubs in the Premier League, as well as a host of matches against mid-table opposition. Whether or not the Toffees can stay in the top six the rest of the season may well be decided in this run.

The good news? Everton enters December having notched a victory over Cardiff City last week.

The bad news? This weekend, Everton crosses Stanley Park to take on Liverpool at Anfield, then on Wednesday faces a Newcastle United side that hasn’t lost in four consecutive matches.

Let’s relive the pleasant part of that equation first, taking a look at our picks from that match.

All but one participating writers correctly picked that Everton would defeat Cardiff, though none predicted a 1-0 scoreline. Geno and Pete expertly predicted that Andre Gomes would have a breakout match, while I was the only one to get Gylfi Sigurdsson right as the match’s opening scorer.

Because nearly all of us picked the right outcome by the wrong scoreline, there wasn’t a whole lot of movement in the Prediction League table this week.

Calvin remains atop the table with a host of writers behind him with point totals in the mid-to-high 20s. Rachel remains stuck at the foot of the table, and I’ll have you know that I only made fun of her about that one time this week.

Speaking of being made fun of, Everton travels to Liverpool this week and we all have at least one friend who’s a Liverpool supporter and Everton hasn’t won at Liverpool since Bill Clinton was president and I think you see where I’m going with this.

And yet, for at least two of our writers, hope springs eternal.

Tom and Rachel have Everton breaking the near 20-year curse and coming away from Anfield with all three points. Another four writers have Everton taking a point from the match, which would unequivocally be a good result as well.

The other six of us are sane people who have Liverpool winning, but primarily through one-goal margins.

Mohamed Salah is the most popular choice to open the scoring, but Sigurdsson does have three votes as well, alongside Sadio Mane. Jordan Pickford and Sigurdsson split the majority of the man of the match predictions, with each tallying four votes.

Even if the derby goes sideways with the quickness though, not all is necessarily lost this week. A home victory over Newcastle on Wednesday would more or less keep Everton’s current form afloat — and we’re quite confident that Marco Silva’s men will get the job done.

Every one of our writers has Everton beating Newcastle (historically not a great sign for the Toffees, in truth). 2-1 and 2-0 are the most popular scorelines.

Sigurdsson again leads the way in the first scorer department, though Cenk Tosun’s presence in two votes seems indicative of an expectation that Silva will rotate his squad a little in this match.

Ademola Lookman’s three votes for man of the match seem to confirm that suspicion.