Live Blog

Fulltime - Everton have scraped through to the next round really, struggling to beat Lincoln City who did well today. Despite going down 2-0 early on, the Imps and their crowd certainly made their presence felt today, good luck to them.

90+4’ - Lincoln have a late, late corner.. poor corner cleared by Bernard, whew. Blues counter and Gueye gives it away straight to the opponents. Come on!

90’ - Baines has looked ready to play today, despite not getting a look-in for months - another great cross and Tosun’s shot is saved.
Lincoln get a late chance but Zouma does well in the box to clear, whew. There will be four more minutes.

88’ - Baines does well and Richarlison’s shot is oh so close.

86’ - Richarlison comes up spitting blood as the commentators are going on about how the Brazilian goes to ground too easily. Timing is everything lads.

83’ - Imps win another corner, and yet again it’s a Lincoln head that gets to the ball first, but it’s offside.

81’ - Lincoln have made all their subs and now so have the Blues, with Richarlison coming on for Sigurdsson.
Bernard will play as the #10 with Richarlison out on the right. Lookman started brightly but faded away as the game went on - is this why Silva uses his as a supersub more often than not?

75’ - About fifteen minutes to go in this, still 2-1 - next goal will make all the difference.

56’ - Sigurdsson stings Josh Vickers’ palms with an excellent strike from distance, good save by the goalie.

47’ - Kenny is the first to go into the referee’s noteook, gets a yellow card.

46’ - Marco’s seen enough and makes two changes at the break, with Cenk Tosun and Andre Gomes coming on for DCL and Tom Davies, the latter was especially invisible or awful in equal measures.

Halftime - The Jekyll and Hyde Everton are here in full effect today. Great first quarter, forgettable second quarter.. who shows up in the second half?

45+2’ - Blues finally do something positive late in the half, with Bernard winning a corner but it’s cleared away and we’re at halftime.

40’ - After the first quarter of the game that they dominated, the Blues have fallen back into their disjointed football from the last month. The home crowd is nowhere to be heard either with the visitors making all the noise.

34’ - Another needless freekick conceded in the left channel. Lincoln try to get cute though and Jonjoe Kenny puts in another solid tackle.

32’ - Good spell here for Lincoln who put on pressure immediately after their first goal, winning three corners in succession. Blues being tested here, and the 5,500 visiting Imps are making themselves heard.

28’ - 2-1 now! Lincoln City score.. from a setpiece of course. Freekick is headed towards Jordan Pickford who can only parry it back into the mess of players and an Imp bangs it back in. Game on?

26’ - Frecklington has the first shot for the Imps, and its well wide and over.

22’ - DCL nips in to cut out an errant backpass, runs at the defence and gets around the goalie before its palmed away for a corner that comes to nothing.

20’ - Lookman cuts in again from the left and his right-footed shot fizzes just wide of the post - the lad is hungry!

15’ - It’s 2-0 now! Gylfi Sigurdsson finds Dominic Calvert-Lewin in the box, and he plays in Bernard who dinks it over the onrushing goalie.

12’ - Goal! Ademola Lookman has put the Blues ahead, completely unmarked and gets to Leighton Baines’ peach of a cross. It’s 1-0 and the Blues deserve that lead.

8’ - Everton have had the ball for the last couple of minutes, and have the Imps penned into their own third. No real penetration though.

4’ - Ugh. Kurt Zouma makes a terrible pass in midfield that is cut out and allows John Akinde to run at him and beat him, but his pass into the centre is fired wide.

1’ - Ohh Ade!! On Everton’s first real possession Ademola Lookman cuts in from the right and fires just over with his left foot.

Lineup - Looks like Marco Silva is taking no chances today and has named a pretty strong starting lineup.

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A tired and increasingly uninspired Everton squad will get a bit of a simpler FA Cup Third Round fixture than some other Premier League sides, playing host to League Two side Lincoln City.

It’ll be interesting to see if Marco Silva will rotate his squad or somehow try to get his limited charges to show up yet once again. The Blues have no room for error in the Cup especially since their recent slump means that seventh place is by no means a given.

Match Details

Date and start time: Saturday, January 5th at 7:00 a.m. PT / 10:00 a.m ET / 1:00 p.m. BST

Stadium: Goodison Park, Liverpool, England, United Kingdom

Capacity: 39,572

Weather: 45°F/7°C, mostly cloudy, 6% chance of precipitation, 10 mph winds

How to Watch/Listen

TV: N/A - United States; N/A - United Kingdom, Sportsnet World - Canada, SuperSport 3, RMC Sport 1, beIN Sports, DAZN

Radio: Everton Match Centre, BBC Radio 5 Live, TalkSport Radio World, SiriusXM FC

Live stream: ESPN+, fuboTV, beIN Sports Connect, Flow Sports App, Optus Sport

Gamethread: Liveblog will be updated above from one hour before kickoff

Information from LiveSoccerTV.com

Lineups

Everton

Starting XI: Pickford; Baines, Mina, Zouma, Kenny; Gueye, Davies; Bernard, Sigurdsson, Lookman; Calvert-Lewin

Subs: Stekelenburg, Jagielka, Gomes, Tosun, McCarthy, Coleman, Richarlison

Lincoln City

Starting XI: Vickers, O’Connor, Shackell, Pett, Frecklington, Andrade, Toffolo, Bostwick, Eardley, Anderson, Akinde

Subs: Slocombe, Gordon, Wharton, Rhead, Chapman, McCartan, Mensah

Last Meeting

Everton have not played the Imps too many times in recent memory, with the last pair of games being the two-legged League Cup clashes from back in 1993. The Toffees prevailed 8-5 on aggregate with two 4-3 and 4-2 wins.