Everton welcome champions Leicester City to Goodison Park

In normal circumstances, facing the current English champions who remain in the Champions League at this late stage would be a daunting challenge, yet despite Everton suffering numerous injuries in addition to a recent loss and draw, I fully expect us to make easy work of the foxes. If we look at how each team will set up, things are starting to look up (the Ev).

Koeman claims himself to be a champion of promoting youth and rightfully so, over the years he has developed some excellent under-23 players including the likes of Eriksen, Alderwiereld and Mane, a trend which he continues with our sparkling youngsters. When Funes Mori got injured many fans anticipated the call up of Pennington since the manager previously declared his interest, and used him during the preseason.

With the injuries now mounting up and a red card taking Williams out of the selection choice, we can safely assume we will get to see some fresh faces getting a call up in the coming weeks, especially in home games.

Everton are unlikely to go with a back 3 due to a painful lack of fit centre-backs , my guess is that we will start with a 4-3-2-1 with Jagielka and Pennington pairing up, Baines and Holgate, with a midfield 3 of Gana and Davies either side of Scheiderlin sitting in front of the centre-backs, then finally Barkley and Mirallas tucking in behind Lukaku.

Vardy giving it beans /

Though this is what I think we will see, if Vardy plays then we may need the pace of Holgate at CB which would also allow young Kenny to get a game after starting on the bench last game, but with Leicester against all odds remaining in the Champions League we may not see the mercurial Steptoe himself.

With Leicester now 8 points clear from 18^th and still in contention to become champions of Europe (what?) we cannot be sure who they will play, but we can safely assume they will field either a 4-4-2/4-4-1-1 with buildup play being focused in the wide areas or the classic Foxes strategy of the long central ball.

The 4-3-2-1 midfield 3 is set up perfectly to handle the typical threat Everton will face on Sunday, in the League Leicester have nothing to play for while we can still chase top 6, implying we will fight harder than they will. Thankfully the disadvantages of our injury ridden side will be countered by their interests being placed in Madrid as opposed to Merseyside. The Old Lady will rock, Leicester will be solid but Lukaku will grind and grind until all that is left is our 3 points.

Up the Ev!

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