Everton v. Newcastle United: Writer Prediction League

With hopes of a seventh-place finish and a return to Europe all but dashed, Everton’s final few matches of the season have taken on new levels of meaninglessness. Thankfully for us at RBM, we’ve still got the prediction league to give the final weeks a little meaning!

This week, the Toffees take on a relatively in-form Newcastle United side at Goodison Park. The past six weeks have been a struggle for Everton, with two away matches and two home matches against top-four opposition — so this week represents perhaps their best chance to take three points in some time.

But before we look at predictions for this week’s match, let’s take one last look back at last week’s draw against Swansea City.

Only two writers, Calvin and I, correctly predicted a draw, while I got the final score right as well. No one guessed that an own goal would open the scoring, nor that Jordan Pickford would again be voted Everton’s man of the match.

Though I’m very pleased with my four-point week, the more interesting result is Calvin’s, as those two points push him back to the top of the leaderboard with just four matches to play.

Mike remains just two points back of the leader, while my four-point week pushed me a little bit farther from the foot of the table.

With that said, let’s take a look at the predictions for the Newcastle match this week.

Every writer has Everton getting at least a point from this match, with five predicting victories and six predicting draws. 1-1 and 2-1 are the most common scorelines.

Cenk Tosun remains a popular choice to open the scoring, though Wayne Rooney also notched two votes. Man of the match predictions are a little more varied — Pickford and Tosun lead the way in that category with three votes each.