Everton at Stoke City: Writer Prediction League

The Everton season, and our predictions, continue rolling toward their conclusion — with both facing improved fortunes last week against Brighton and Hove Albion!

The Toffees have been much better at Goodison Park than away from home this season, which surely played a role in the 2-0 victory on Saturday — it certainly played a role in our predictions! Everton travels to Stoke City this week though, and the away nature of that match impacted our predictions less than you might think.

First though, let’s review last week’s predictions, which are below with correct guesses in bold.

Six writers predicted an Everton victory, but none foresaw a 2-0 scoreline. Likewise, no one predicted an own goal to start the scoring (go figure), but Tom did correctly predict Cenk Tosun would be the Everton man of the match.

Mike was one of the writers to correctly predict an Everton win, while Calvin did not, so we had another change atop the prediction league standings.

This week, the Toffees travel to relegation-threatened Stoke City. The Potters sit in 19th place, only one point from the safe zone with eight matches still to play.

Stoke has only one win in calendar year 2018 and has conceded 56 goals in Premier League play, second-worst in the league. The club’s defense has improved noticeably since Paul Lambert took over in mid-January, but it hasn’t been enough to drag the Potters to safety.

I suspect if this match was at Goodison Park, our writers would wholly select the Toffees to win, but with the away form being what it is, the picks are pretty evenly split.

Five writers predicted an Everton win, three a draw, and three a Stoke City victory. Cenk Tosun is a very popular pick to open the scoring, while the man of the match voting is pretty evenly spread.