Everton at Aston Villa: Writer Prediction League

There’s a sense of cautious optimism surrounding the start to Everton’s 2019-20 season. Four points and two clean sheets from two games, given that injuries, suspensions, and uninitiated new signings have all played a role in things is really pretty positive — and our writers’ predictions have largely reflected that optimism.

Of course, it also helps when you’re playing less-than-impressive opposition.

This week, the Toffees play away to newly-promoted Aston Villa, who spent 140 million pounds this offseason to start the season with two losses. Villa signed some decent players with that money, but it’s hard not to at least harbor initial fears of a Fulham 2.0 situation.

Before we look ahead to that match and our predictions for it though, let’s review how our predictions went for Everton’s match against Watford last week — a 1-0 victory at Goodison Park.

Brian L. and Matt A. were the big winners of the week, each of whom had the final 1-0 scoreline correct. Nobody had Bernard opening the scoring or taking man of the match honors, but six other writers did get Everton winning correct.

With those points added in, our early-season table looks like the following.

Pete has taken sole possession of first place, with Rachel closest behind. Calvin, Chris, and Geno remain the only writers to earn no points through two weeks.

They’ve got a pretty good chance to pick up a few with Villa on the docket this week though — those picks are below.

Our writers have big hopes for Richarlison to open his account tomorrow — seven of 13 writers have him opening the scoring. That’ll undoubtedly be among the more interesting matchups of the day, with Richarlison and Seamus Coleman matching up with leg-breaker Neil Taylor on the Everton right / Villa left.

Man of the match predictions are spread a little more varied — Richarlison has three votes, as does Gylfi Sigurdsson. Yerry Mina and Jean-Philippe Gbamin each also have two votes.

The result predictions are as you’d expect — heavily tilted in Everton’s favor. Nobody has Aston Villa taking all three points, with just three writers predicting a draw.