Everton v. Brighton and Hove Albion: Writer Prediction League

Everton is coming down the home stretch in the 2017-18 Premier League season, with only nine matches left to fool us into thinking this season actually meant something.

That means there’s only nine matches left for our writers to make a move in our writer prediction league as well, after last week’s match against Burnley was cause for some movement in our standings.

Let’s review those Burnley picks before we move on to this week’s match against Brighton and Hove Albion.

Only four writers correctly picked that Burnley would get the win. Brian L. picked up two extra points for getting the score correct, and Calvin and Chris both got a bonus point for picking Jordan Pickford correctly as Everton’s man of the match.

With those results, we’ve got a new leader atop the table.

Calvin’s three-point week thrust him into first, while Brian F.’s failure to put up any points probably put to rest any hopes of catching the top two. The middle positions remain a huge dogfight, with only six points separating fourth and ninth place.

This week, Everton faces Brighton and Hove Albion, which actually sits a spot above the Toffees in the Premier League table. A win will push Everton back into the top half of the table — a much more likely occurrence than last week, given that this match is at Goodison Park.

Still, playing at home hasn’t entirely convinced our writers that this will be Everton’s week.

Six writers have Everton winning, with three predicting a draw, and two a Brighton victory. Among the interesting score predictions are Mike and Zach’s 1-0 to Everton — a bold guess given that the Toffees haven’t yet kept a clean sheet in 2018.

Less surprising are the first goal picks, with Theo Walcott, Cenk Tosun, and Glenn Murray headlining the bunch. Man of the match picks are a little more evenly divided, with Leighton Baines, Seamus Coleman, and Jordan Pickford getting in on the action as well.