@ZAPunter provides his betting tips for the English Premier League match between Brighton and Everton which takes place on Saturday 26th October
BRIGHTON VS EVERTON, SATURDAY @ 16:00
Brighton and Everton meet at the Amex stadium on Saturday, both teams are close to the relegation zone with 9 games played in the season. Brighton is struggling to find consistency in their performances, but they managed to beat a struggling Tottenham team 3-0 in their last home game. Everton are under performing once again this season and have only managed 1 point away from home this entire season. It’s too early in the season to talk about a relegation 6 pointer, but both sides will understand a victory on Saturday will open up some much needed space with the bottom 3 sides. I’m a big admirer of Graham Potter’s philosophy and his journey to the Premier League and with he should be just fine in the league. On the other side, I feel Marco Silva has been over hyped by the media and he’s already feeling the pressure on Merseyside.
BRIGHTON:
After two successful seasons with Brighton, Chris Hughton was sacked by the board and replaced with a relatively unknown manager with Graham Potter and some Seagulls fans were upset with the change. Since then Brighton has come full circle in terms of their playing style, moving away from the long ball to Murray and compact defence, on to playing possession football and being aggressive on the counter attack. The game against Spurs was the perfect execution of Potter’s plan and the Amex was bouncing for 90min. It’s difficult to judge their performance against Aston Villa because of the red card in the first half, but they were on the front foot at Villa Park before Australian midfielder Aaron Mooy lost his head. Brighton’s expected goals this season: xGf – 1.46 and xGa – 1.6, there is the opportunity that their games will see more goals at both ends of the pitch. Mooy is the only player that will be missing from last week, while Bernardo and Izquierdo are still on the long term injury list.
EVERTON:
Everton’s fans are feeling deeply frustrated with their team’s demise so far this season. It seems when the Toffees take 1 step forward, they take 2 steps back the following weekend. After an excellent transfer window where they spent around 107mil pounds, they were expected to challenge for the top 6, but now they find themselves struggling to stay away from the relegation zone. They have lost 5 of their first 9 league games and they only have 1 point to show from their travels as previously stated. Silva’s team often looks lost in games and they struggle to control games for a significant amount of time. This team has so much talent and youthfulness and the question should be asked if Silva is the best man for the job. Everton’s expected goals this season: xGf – 1.68 and xGa – 1.24, this shows that their performances have been better than their results and we could see them improving soon. Mina and Delph will likely miss this game as a precaution, but Gbamin and Tosun are still ruled out for the long term.
PROBABLE LINE-UPS:
Brighton: 4-4-2
Ryan,
Montoya, Webster, Dunk, Burn,
Gross, Propper, Stephens, March,
Connolly, Maupay.
Everton: 4-2-3-1
Pickford,
Coleman, Keane, Holgate, Digne,
Davies, Gomes,
Walcott, Sigurdsson, Bernard,
Richarlison.
PREDICTION:
I expect we will see the same game plan for Brighton that they used against Tottenham as Potter will be hoping Everton will be vulnerable on the counter attack. Everton’s win at home against West Ham should give them much needed confidence and they will feel confident about getting their first away win this season. I have no play on the side here, rather on both teams scoring. Everton has been caught out on the counter attack far too often this season and Brighton’s defence won’t have the pace to cope with Everton’s forwards. This should be an entertaining game.
BETTING:
Both teams to score – 1.79 @ BetOlimp
Best Bets Record: 7-1-1
Overall Record: 19-14-3
Note, odds quoted are available at the time of writing but are subject to change
@ZAPunter
