Everton at Cardiff City: Writer Prediction League

Wasn’t that such a refreshing break?

More than two weeks without an Everton disappointment — and after so many consecutive disappointments, it was probably good for everyone’s mental health that the Toffees didn’t play for a couple of week.

But Marco Silva’s side returns to action in what you’d have to say is a pretty big match. Cardiff City is coming off of an utter humiliation at the hands of Watford on Friday — with former Toffee Gerard Deulofeu netting a hat trick.

Neil Warnock’s side sits just one point out of the relegation zone, and frankly a quick scan of the talent on Cardiff’s roster deems that to be extraordinarily unlikely. Everton’s away form has continued to be atrocious, but if ever there was a time to turn that around, it’s this week at Cardiff.

Of course, the pressure that comes along with this game is heightened based on what came before and what comes next. Everton takes on Liverpool in the home edition of the Merseyside Derby Sunday — potentially the Toffees’ last chance to grab a feel-good moment this season.

And two weeks ago, Marco Silva returned to face his old club, Watford. That uninspiring 1-0 loss dropped Everton seven points back of seventh place — so if the Toffees want to get back in that race, matches like these must return three points.

Before we look ahead though, let’s take one last look back at the Watford match.

Chris and Rachel each picked up four points for getting the final outcome of the match right, while no writers picked either the first goalscorer or Everton MOTM correctly.

Those results were primarily a positive to the man sitting atop our prediction league table.

Calvin remains atop the table, keeping his eight-point lead on the rest of the field. A zero-point week dropped Matt A. further back — another week like that and we may be looking at a two-man title race.

Meanwhile, a second consecutive strong week from Rachel has her up firmly into mid-table after lingering in the relegation places for most of the first half of the season.

She, like the rest of us, will be hoping that this is the week Everton finally looks like it has some impetus to get things moving in the right direction. The optimism among our group, given Everton’s overall form (not to mention its away form), I find a little bit surprising.

In fact, I’m the only one predicting a Cardiff win on Tuesday — with the winner coming predictably from a set piece, off the head of a big center-back.

Four writers are slightly more optimistic than I am, picking draws of either 0-0 or 1-1. The rest of our writers have Everton winning, with Tom and Zach even predicting the Toffees will win by multiple goals.

Our writers might have faith in Everton overall, but few seem to think anybody but Richarlison has a particularly good chance of getting on the scoresheet — the Brazilian grabbed seven opening goalscorer votes.