Team News
Everton will be hoping that John Stones will recover in time after his illness forced him out of the midweek Europa League match. Gareth Barry is sitting out a two game ban, while Aiden McGeady, Steven Pienaar, Tony Hibbert and Bryan Oviedo will all also be unavailable. Leighton Baines and Leon Osman will be facing fitness tests before the match.
Newcastle will be without Papiss Cisse who is starting a seven game suspension, although Rob Elliott, Remy Cabella and Jack Colback return. Steven Taylor, Cheick Tiote, Massadio Haidara, Siem de Jong and Paul Dummett are all unavailable through injuries.
Match Preview
Everton will be hoping that they can pick up where they left off in the second half of their mid-week Europa League match, especially after Roberto Martinez admitted earlier in the week that the club had fallen into a relegation fight. Everton have seemingly struggled after having played a mid-week European match this season, and if they are to pick up a very much needed three points they need to address that problem in this match.
Everton showed that they are capable to fighting back in mid-week after falling a goal behind early on to record a vital victory, and it is that kind of determination and fight that is required if they are to move away from the bottom parts of the table. Small signs of improvement have been visible in recent weeks, although there have still been to now seemingly customary mistakes punctuating some of the positivity. Should Everton get back to playing fast positive football, and be able to pass the ball around the pitch crisply and accurately then any worries about a relegation fight should be able to be put to bed.
A big plus point for Everton will be if Romelu Lukaku can bring his form from the Europa League into the Premier League for Everton, he has seemingly found it a lot easier to score goals in European competition that in domestic football so far. If he finds his domestic scoring boots on a regular basis then he can fire Everton away from trouble.
Newcastle have not had the best of times or results when on their travels this season and if Everton could get off to a quick start and get an early goal then Newcastle could find this another difficult journey.
Match Prediction
Everton have been unpredictable this season and have proved to be quite difficult to predict, however they seem to have recently started to rediscover some of their form from last season, and a little more of their confidence on the ball. The midweek come-back against Kiev will have given them a boost and as such I am going to predict a 2-0 victory for Everton.
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