In Sunday’s Premier League match at Goodison Park, title-chasing Aston Villa takes on basement-dwelling Everton, who are looking to avoid going six games without a victory in all competitions.
In the FA Cup third round, the Lions defeated Middlesbrough 1-0 to start the year, while Crystal Palace forced the Toffees to play again.
Everton’s cup match against Crystal Palace ended in a 0-0 draw last Thursday, with little goalmouth action to report. However, the referees at Selhurst Park once again made headlines for all the wrong reasons, as the Toffees played the last 15 minutes with 10 men due to an odd red card given to Dominic Calvert-Lewin.
The striker barely gave the Palace defender a graze as he challenged Nathaniel Clyne, but after a quick glance at the monitor, referee Chris Kavanagh decided to send Calvert-Lewin off the field, much to Everton’s dismay.
But with Calvert-Lewin’s red card and subsequent suspension overturned on appeal, Sean Dyche’s team will feel that justice has been served going into the weekend. However, another fixture
Everton was defeated by all three of Manchester City, Tottenham Hotspur, and Wolverhampton Wanderers in their final three games of 2023; despite having played one more game than Luton Town in 18th place, they were only one point above the relegation zone after the stalemate at Selhurst Park at least ended their miserable four-game losing streak.
Everton has never lost four straight Premier League games under Dyche’s coaching, although they have lost their previous seven games while playing against clubs that are among the top six in the league standings. They have also gone nine games without a win against these teams.
When Aston Villa traveled to a battered Middlesbrough team, who battled head-to-head with Unai Emery’s team but was undone by a massive stroke of bad luck in the closing minutes, a scoreless cup tie similarly appeared to be in the works.
After 87 minutes of fruitless effort by the Lions, a speculative goal by Matty Cash, deflected off Emmanuel Latte Lath and into the bottom corner, sent Villa to the fourth round, where Chelsea will be waiting in a few weeks. This came as Middlesbrough was about to force a replay.
