Everton host Tottenham in a battle of the underachievers

Everton play host to Tottenham in a battle of two sides struggling to gain momentum as their respective season’s expectations slip away from them.

This is not how either of these sides would have envisioned their outlook upon this fixture at the beginning of the season.

Tottenham, after last season’s run to the Champions League final and maintaining “contender” status for the Premier League crown for the majority of the season, are languishing in the bottom half of the table.

For Everton, with the likes of headline grabbing transfers like Alex Iwobi and Moise Keane coming into the squad, their eyes were looking towards challenging for a top for finish, are just a hair out of the relegation zone.

This matchday 11 meeting between the Spurs and the Toffees will be between two clubs trying to turn the momentum of their season towards the positive and fight their way back up the table.

Tottenham’s season has been mired in a funk for about a month, seeming to follow the 7-2 thrashing they received at the hands of Bayern Munich in their Champions League group stage fixture. What followed was three losses in Premier League fixtures, including an inexplicable 3-0 loss to Brighton away.

Spurs seem to have started getting their form back in a 5-0 victory over Red Star Belgrade and a spirited loss to league leaders, Liverpool, they will need an improved performance from many of their stars to find their way back to success.

While it looks like stars Harry Kane and Son Heung-Min have founded their scoring touch again, they will need much more production out of struggling stars Christian Eriksen and Dele Alli, if they want to turn things around.

While Spurs have lulled as of late, Everton has been a disaster thus far this season. The Toffees have only one win in their past six matches. With the amount of money that the Merseyside club has splashed over the past few offseasons, its their lack of venom in the final third that has been their Achilles heel thus far. With the likes of Richarlison and Gylfi Sigurdsson struggling mightily this season, Everton produced a paltry ten goals on the season.

Everton’s poor start is even more alarming considering that just one of their matches (a 3-1 loss to Manchester City) so far this season was against a top six side from last season.

With an absolutely brutal December looming in the distance (with away fixtures against Liverpool, Manchester United and home matches against Arsenal and Chelsea), the boys from Goodison Park will need to revere course soon rather than later, for Marco Silva’s sake.

Team news

Everton come into the match relatively injury free however the few injuries that they do have are key. The team will be without the services of defensive midfielder Jean-Philippe Gbamin and Brazilian forward Bernard. The Brazilian’s absence will be especially felt since Everton likes to play a high pressing style and the former Shakhtar Donetsk winger’s pace would have been a difficult task for Tottenham to handle. The good news is that it does appear that ailing defender Yerry Mina will be available this weekend.

For Spurs, the only two definite absences appear to be Danny Rose who will be serving a suspension after a booking last week against Liverpool and goalkeeper Hugo Lloris (out with a dislocated elbow). Erik Lamela, Jan Vertonghen and Ryan Sessegnon all picked up minor injuries in training and appear questionable for Sunday.

Marco Silva thoughts on how his team will match up against Spurs this Sunday:

“They played the Champions League final last season and didn’t lost many players. They have fantastic players and a fantastic manager.

“We look at Tottenham as a strong side with really high quality and international players at their best. For me it will be a tough one. With Goodison as the 12th player, we can win the game.”

Mauricio Pochettino on Tottenham’s outlook on the season so far and what lies ahead:

“We need to be positive, feel that positivity and make us believe that we can beat any team. At the moment we struggle with our confidence, we drop a lot. That’s only time. The most important thing is how we’re going to finish, it’s not this moment.”