Everton v. Norwich City: Writer Prediction League

There’s been a lot of talk about Everton’s position in the Premier League — 15th — over the international break, but the Toffees are honestly in pretty decent form, at least relative to the rest of the league.

Marco Silva’s side has seven points from its last four matches — a 1.75 points-per-game ratio that would be good enough for fifth place in the league if it had been their average for the entire season so far. Add in a 2-0 victory over Watford that brings the team into the quarterfinals of the League Cup, and all of a sudden things feel a lot better than the table indicates.

So yes, Everton’s victory over Southampton before the international break might not have been the prettiest thing you’ve ever seen, but points are points and the Toffees will take them — the same attitude I imagine will carry into the Norwich City game this weekend.

But before we look ahead to that, let’s review our picks from the Southampton match, which feels like it was decades ago.

There was a reasonable amount of success for our writers in this one. Seven correctly picked that Everton would win, with three even getting the score right.

Tom Davies was voted man of the match, netting four writers an extra point, though no one correctly predicted he’d open the scoring as well.

With those points tallied, our prediction league table looks like the following.

Rachel closed the gap at the top of the table a little bit, while a whole host of writers have now pushed into striking distance in the 10-13 points range.

Chris, somehow, still sits league-bottom with a fascinating two points.

I’m admittedly not expecting a lot of change in the table this coming week, because you’ll notice that our picks for the Norwich City matches have a lot in common.

You’ll notice that all of our writers picked Everton to win the match (historically not a great sign for the Toffees). 2-1 and 2-0 are the joint-most popular scoreline.

In the opening goalscorer category, the uncertainty at the striker position has made Richarlison a top choice for most of our writers — eight of us have the Brazilian opening the scoring.

Richarlison was a popular choice for man of the match too — but not as popular as Tom Davies. The young midfielder edged out the winger 5-4 in the voting.