Must win match for Everton to get season back on track

After two defeats and a domestic cup exit Everton welcome Norwich City to Goodison Park tomorrow for a match they really need to win.

Failure to get all three points on Saturday won’t be the end of the world (although a loss to the struggling Norfolk side would be a big problem!) but Everton really do need to stabalise things after those defeats to Aston Villa and QPR.

Another bad result coming on top of the mounting injury problems and with a hugely challenging trip to Manchester United next, would be a real blow and might see the season begin to unravel a little after what had been up to last weekend a fine start.

At the time of writing we haven’t heard from Rafa Benitez yet concerning all the injured players so sorely missed at Villa and in west London on Tuesday night.

Most importantly is to learn more hopefully about how long the Blues will be without their two main forwards Richarlison and Dominic Calvert-Lewin.

Both are of course, extremely unlikely to be available for tomrrow’s game and that is a real worry for the manager as he attempts to pick a starting eleven.

The Toffees looked pretty toothless in attack against QPR and Salomon Rondon, who presumably will start at centre-forward against Norwich, looks rusty and off the pace.

He will need as much support as possible from other attacking players and here lies another problem as Everton will also presumably still be without right-back Seamus Coleman and possibly too Lucas Digne who went off against Rangers.

If both these two are out then that presents Benitez with a real conundrum. I’ve mentioned the possibility that the manager might consider some version of the sort of tactics and formations Carlo Ancelotti adopted when he was faced with similar injury problems, defensive weaknesses and declining form. We’ll see perhaps on Saturday what he comes up with.

At any rate it’s difficult to say what sort of side Benitez will pick if all the players who have been out over the past week are still unavailable to him.

One positive after all these negatives is the continuing excellence of both the two attacking signings of the summer Demarai Gray and especially Andros Townsend.

The former Newcastle United and Crystal Palace winger has been in superb form since joining the Blues and he was again the best player on the pitch for the Toffees in Tuesday’s Carabao Cup tie. The team desperately need him to continue this excellence tomorrow afternoon.

As expected, Norwich themselves have struggled since the season started and they sit bottom of the Premier League and have lost all their four matches so far. They too went out of the league cup on Tuesday as they were beaten by Liverpool.

So, on paper this looks like exactly the sort of fixture Everton need on the back of those two recent defeats. But as we know from the past this team has a real knack for losing matches they should win and the last time these sides met at Goodison Park the Canaries won 2-0. We can’t afford a repeat of that tomorrow.