Everton vs West Ham: Writer Prediction League

The first international break of the Premier League season is always a downer. Just when you feel like things are starting to get into a rhythm, everybody takes a week off.

Well — almost always. Everton was very happy to see the international break approach with the growing injury crisis at the club. Of course, some players came back with new injuries (RIP in peace, Seamus) — but on the whole, the Toffees are a healthier bunch than when we last saw them.

The only other relief to the still somewhat significant injury situation is the fact that Everton faces league-bottom West Ham United on Sunday. The Hammers are an absolute mess right now, and the Toffees really need to take advantage of an opponent struggling to find its way.

Before we look ahead to our predictions for that match though, let’s take a quick look back at the Toffees’ last match before the break — home against Huddersfield.

...what’s that? That match ended in a draw? Uh...let’s make it a very quick look back then.

Only one writer got any points last time out — Zach gained 4 points on the field by picking a 1-1 draw at Goodison Park.

So, there wasn’t much change to our season table.

Zach, naturally, jumped up a few places into mid-table. We also welcome our new Australian writer, Adam Dyson into the fold this week. We’re starting him off with 10 points — the average point tally among our other 13 writers so far.

He and the rest of our writers jump into an interesting match this weekend, with Everton hosting West Ham. Marco Silva’s media availability revealed more good injury news than bad, but the Toffees will definitely still be short-handed against the last-place Hammers.

Still, our confidence is relatively high.

Eight of 13 writers have Everton grabbing a home win, with the other five predicted draws of various scorelines. We don’t often see 0-0 guesses in the prediction league, but Rachel has gone out on a limb this week — maybe not a bad thought given the amount of talent out for Everton and the lack of talent (or at least cohesive talent) at West Ham.

That said, three writers did pick Marko Arnautovic to open the scoring at Goodison. Rachel, by virtue of her 0-0 draw prediction, has no opening scorer. The rest of the crew — nine writers in total — thinks this is the week Cenk Tosun gets off the mark.

I’d wager that pick is a combination of confidence in the Turkish striker and uncertainty regarding who the hell else will be playing alongside him!

Man of the match voting favors Gylfi Sigurdsson, with the Icelander earning five votes. Tosun, Jonjoe Kenny, Theo Walcott, Morgan Schneiderlin, Kurt Zouma, and Jordan Pickford also got on the board in this category.