Everton vs Manchester City: Projected XI

Everton welcome Manchester City to Goodison Park tomorrow, and the Toffees are mired in some of their worst form of the season. What a great time to face one of the best Premier League teams of all-time! Wow! Such an opportun-haha kill me here’s how Everton might line up.

Tactics and Formation

Marco Silva has actually been aggressive — at least relatively speaking — against top six sides this season. Thus far, it hasn’t netted him a victory, but there have been some quite promising performances.

Those matches came months ago though, well before the bottom seems to have fallen out on his squad. Would he be willing to play anything other than a deep-lying bunker against the defending champions given his team’s current form?

It seems unlikely.

Starters (likelihood of starting rated out of 10)

Jordan Pickford - 10/10

Lucas Digne - 10/10

Digne served his suspension and Marco Silva essentially took a baseball bat to Leighton Baines’ quickly aging body last week, so Digne will surely start.

Kurt Zouma - 10/10

Michael Keane - 10/10

With Yerry Mina and Phil Jagielka still out injured, the center-back situation continues to sort itself out.

Seamus Coleman - 10/10

Andre Gomes - 10/10

Idrissa Gueye - 9/10

Gana is over his “injury,” and Silva has indicated he should be good to go this week. We’re pretty confident he’ll start, but if he actually, genuinely had an injury, Silva could theoretically opt to bring him in off the bench for this one.

Gylfi Sigurdsson - 10/10

Richarlison - 10/10

Silva seems, at least for now, to have put the Richarlison-at-striker experiment to bed. He’ll continue to start on the left wing.

Ademola Lookman - 7/10

We have no idea why Lookman hasn’t started either of the last two matches. He’s been easily the most creative of Everton’s wingers this season, and his defensive contribution isn’t notably worse than that of Bernard or Theo Walcott.

With those two players both failing to grasp their chances in any meaningful way over the last two weeks, surely Lookman draws back in...right?

Cenk Tosun - 7/10

The Turkish striker’s hold-up play his hilariously better than either Richarlison’s or Dominic Calvert Lewin’s. The other striker options may be putting the ball into the net at a more reliable rate, but against Manchester City, having a striker who can help to retain possession with his back to goal is going to be absolutely vital.

Bench

Maarten Stekelenburg

Jonjoe Kenny

Tom Davies

James McCarthy — The Irish midfielder has somewhat curiously supplanted Schneiderlin as the next midfielder in the depth chart behind Davies. His game is very similar to that of Davies, and certainly bears little resemblance to Andre Gomes — but Silva seems not bothered by rolling one-deep at the crucial ball-progressing midfield role.

Dominic Calvert-Lewin

Theo Walcott

Bernard

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We’ve acquired exclusive footage of Everton’s season heading for the finish line.