After a solid start to their season winning four of the opening five games, Everton have struggled to hold their ground. They suffered a humiliating defeat away to Chelsea before going to the international break.
Form wise, Swansea have been disastrous this season as well, reeling at the 19th position as compared to Everton’s 7th place. Everton, though, haven’t won any of their last 4 Premier League games against Swansea.
An encouraging fact, however, will be that Swansea are without a win in the last 10 games, which is their longest winless streak since 2001. Everton will also have to do well considering they have won just one of their last six league games. Swansea are fast becoming one of the favourites for relegation.
Team News
Everton- Everton will be without their key midfielder Gareth Barry who is serving a 1 match suspension after seeing 4 yellow cards. Good news is that Idrissa Gueye will be returning from his suspension. A host of players are approaching a return to training like Leighton Baines, James McCarthy and Darren Gibson. Muhamed Besic is out for a long term injury while the Arouna Kone is back in training and will go a late fitness test before the match.
Swansea- Swansea are one of the very few teams in the Premier League to have an almost fully fit first team squad to play. Their only two players who were out with injury-Nathan Dyer and Jefferson Montero- have also returned to training and are expected to be ready for team selection.
Team Lineup
Everton- Stekelenburg; Funes Mori, Jagielka, Williams, Coleman; Gueye Coleman; Mirallas, Barkley, Bolasie; Lukaku
Swansea City- Fabianski; Kingsley, Mawson, Van der Hoorn, Rangel; Ki, Fer, Routledge; Sigurdsson; Llorente, Borja Baston
Key Players
Everton- Undoubtedly, Romelu Lukaku will have the major responsibility of scoring up front. The Belgian has scored 7 goals and 3 assists this season. The next player who could make a difference would be Ross Barkley. The centre-forward has 2 goals and 1 assist this season.
Swansea City- Although he has not been very sharp lately, Leroy Fer started the campaign brilliantly with back to back goals. He came off the bench last match and had an impact and Bob Bradley will again be expecting something similar from the midfielder. Gylfi Sigurdsson is always a threat in the opponent’s half. He has had 2 goals and has provided 3 assists already.
Odds
Everton- 1.60
Draw- 4.33
Swansea- 6.00
