Everton and Manchester City meet at Goodison with both teams needing a win to prevent their once highly promising seasons from ending in disappointment. It wasn’t too long ago that Toffees fans were expecting their club to finish above Arsenal in that holiest of holy spots – 4th place. And there were murmurings of a quadruple for City before they were knocked out of the FA Cup and Champions League by this season’s yesterday’s clubs – Wigan and Barcelona.
The Sky Blues have suffered the odd costly slip up in 2014, but since the beginning of December, City have taken more points away from home than any other team. Everton’s push for a Champions League has hit a couple of boulders with defeats to Crystal Palace and Southampton, and their season will really be over unless they pull off an unlikely victory today. Manchester City will win the title with three victories in their three remaining games, and they should be too strong for an Everton squad facing an injury crisis. City have failed to score only three times in their 18 away league fixtures, whilst Everton have failed to score only three times in their 18 home league fixtures.
Perhaps the biggest miss for Martinez will be central midfield dynamo Gareth Barry, who cannot play against his parent club. City won the previous encounter 3-1 at the Etihad, as Everton failed to compensate for the loss of Barry, whose all round ability to pass, intercept and tackle in front of the Everton back line is needed against the better teams such as City. Yaya Toure needs one more goal to become only the second central midfielder to score over 20 goals in a Premier League season. With Barry missing for Everton then Toure should find that he can overcome a deeper-lying Ross Barkley or Leon Osman and find that half a chance he needs to power the ball into the net.
Everton rely on possession football and attacking flair to slowly break down teams, and this is highly effective against the weaker teams that made up the bulk of Everton’s recent seven game winning streak. This style of plays means they are much more likely to score later on in games, and this season they have actually scored more goals in the final 15 minutes than they have during the opening 45.
