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Everton v Manchester City: match preview

By Matt Townsend

MANCHESTER, ENGLAND - DECEMBER 15: Kurt Zouma of Everton and Raheem Sterling of Manchester City compete for the ball during the Premier League match between Manchester City and Everton FC at Etihad Stadium on December 15, 2018 in Manchester, United Kingdom. (Photo by Clive Brunskill/Getty Images)
MANCHESTER, ENGLAND - DECEMBER 15: Kurt Zouma of Everton and Raheem Sterling of Manchester City compete for the ball during the Premier League match between Manchester City and Everton FC at Etihad Stadium on December 15, 2018 in Manchester, United Kingdom. (Photo by Clive Brunskill/Getty Images) /
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Everton take on the defending champions tomorrow night in a game that will probably have many Blues fans feeling divided on what they want from the match.

Normally going into this game, every Everton supporter would be desperate for the team to return to winning ways after a dreadful run of results.

But of course if by some miracle Everton were to get something from the match at Goodison Park on Wednesday, it would be Liverpool who would benefit most of all.

In all honesty given the awful performances we have witnessed from the Toffees in recent weeks, it’s highly unlikely Everton will come away with anything other than another chastening defeat.

Recently the Toffees only just managed to scrape a win away to bottom club Huddersfield, which came in between losses to Championship side Millwall in the FA Cup and Wolves last weekend.

It hardly bodes for optimism when the next visitors are the defending Premier League champions, who broke so many records winning the title last season.

Like all Evertonians I would love to see Liverpool’s title hopes dented. And it seems a long shot that Everton might get a point let alone win the game, so Manchester City will probably be top by the end of tomorrow night.

But it would be just ironic if somehow the Blues were to draw or even win against City. After all the champions have already lost to Crystal Palace, Leicester City and Newcastle United this season, none of them top sides.

This game is a bit of free hit for the players, given this situation and as few pundits or fans would give the Toffees much chance against City. And it’s just possible that with the pressure off them, for this match at least, they might turn in an unexpectedly good effort.

This scenario could make for a strange and unusual atmosphere at the grand old lady tomorrow. Although Goodison hasn’t exactly been a great place to play recently, with many fans finding it hard to make much noise seeing how poorly the team has been playing.

So any Everton goals scored tomorrow are likely to be greeted with potentially muted applause by the home supporters!

In other news, Everton owner Farhad Moshiri has seemingly given his backing to Marco Silva staying for the moment, despite the Toffees struggles.

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That can be a double-edged sword for a manager to receive such public backing from an owner. And it remains to be seen whether the board will be able to stick to Silva if the fans turn against him in significant numbers.

At the moment many Everton supporters seem ready to give him a bit more time, not least because changing team manager yet again would create further instability and uncertainty.

But if performances and results continue to decline, then that pressure might grow and become impossible to resist.