Everton at Manchester City: Writer Prediction League

December brings utter fixture madness every season, and 2018 is no different for Everton.

So hectic, in fact, that Monday’s match against Watford slipped right past our team without getting predictions in — but who can really blame us, given the result!

The Watford match was preceded by a home match against Newcastle United, which brought the same result — an utterly disappointing home draw. From two matches that the majority of us felt Everton would take six points, the Toffees instead walk away with only two.

The importance of those two matches cannot be overstated, given that they are sandwiched between matches away to the Premier League’s clear top two teams, Liverpool and Manchester City.

So, let’s take a look back over the last few hectic weeks, then finally a look forward at what we expect to see in the Manchester City match this weekend.

Divock Origi’s late goal at Anfield turned the predictions for this match on their head. It earned me four points, multiple other writers two points, stole two points from those who predicted a draw, and probably cost Jordan Pickford our man of the match as well.

No one really expected the Newcastle match to go as poorly as it did, and as a result, our entire group of writers amassed a measly two points — Calvin and Brian L. correctly predicted Andre Gomes as the Everton man of the match.

The result in our prediction league table, primarily, was the rich getting richer.

Calvin continued to stretch his lead over the majority of the pack, though the unfortunate result against Liverpool helped me close the gap on the leader.

It isn’t overly likely we’ll see a ton of change in the table this week, because most of us are in agreement that a trip to Manchester City is more or less a death sentence.

Not much to say about all this — even facing injury troubles, City is just too good for Everton to have a real chance in this one.