STAR PREVIEW: Lyon v Everton
[dropcap]S[/dropcap]purs did the business in style at Wembley last night to continue the good run of form for the column. Only as good as your last tip etc etc etc !!!
Everton’s European adventures could come to a shuddering end in France tonight when they take on Lyon in the Europa League 6pm game and frankly given their perilous position in the Premier League it could be the best thing that could happen to them.
Make no mistake, the Toffees are in all kinds of trouble and getting this competition out of the way and concentrating on the league might well be their best chance of survival. I really do mean survival – they are a big price to go down on the old basis of ‘being too big a club’ but that’s about all you can cling to as their form is really poor and I genuinely believe them to be relegation candidates.
Certainly, Lyon won’t be too worried – they beat Everton 2-1 at Goodison last month and come into this on a roll of four wins in a row which has helped take them into third behind PSG in Ligue 1. PSG remain the only side to have beaten them this season, across all competitions, and that win came courtesy of two own goals!
Everton are currently in the drop zone in the Premier League with eight points from 10 games and are on a run of four losses from which they have conceded 11 goals.
Caretaker manager David Unsworth said: “We have an uphill task, but it’s not impossible. We’ll give everything to win.
“The Europa League is very important to us because we’ve got 3,000 Evertonians coming to watch us tonight.
“It’s important to me and important to the players. I’ll pick a team to win the game and I know the lads will do everything they can to win it as well.
“Every time you pull on the shirt for this great club, it’s important to win. We want to do it for our fans.”
All admirable words but the sub-text of Wayne Rooney, Leighton Baines, Phil Jagielka being rested suggest Unsworth wants this out of the way so he can get back to the job in hand and Sunday’s home tie against Watford in the Premier League.
Lyon could move to the top of Group E and should maintain their impressive scoring record in the Europa League which currently averages 3.4 goals per home game.
Lyon v Everton
UEFA Europa League Group Stage
18:00 BT Sport 2
HEAD TO HEAD RECORD
(Maximum 10 matches)
Oct 2017 EUROPA LEAGUE Everton 1-2 Lyon
I can’t see any other result but Lyon here and am grabbing the evens with Star Sports for them to be leading at both HT and FT.
RECOMMENDED BETS (scale of 1-100 points)
BACK LYON/LYON HT/FT to win 12 points at EVENS with Star Sports
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