Venue: St. James’ Park
Date: 26/12/2015
Kick-off: 17:30 (BST)
Match
Everton travel to St. James’ Park to square off against a resurgent Newcastle United side on Boxing Day and it is certainly a match in which the Toffees need to claim a victory from.
Everton’s recent unbeaten run suddenly looks like a streak of four matches without a single victory after the Toffees went down 3-2 to at Goodison Park to the hands of Leicester City last weekend.
The defeat has meant that Everton have now slipped down to 10th place in the Premier League table and if they fail to claim a victory soon, earning a spot in one of the European positions looks set to be unreachable.
Now with the busy festive period fast approaching, Everton will now look to get on a good run of form but there are a couple of very tough matches awaiting the Toffees and the Boxing Day encounter against Newcastle United this weekend is set to be one of the more difficult fixtures for Roberto Martinez’s men.
Everton Team News
The trio of Phil Jagielka, James McCarthy, Bryan Oviedo and Steven Pienaar have made good progress with their respective injuries but the quartet are still going to be unavailable for Everton’s encounter against Newcastle United this weekend.
Tim Howard will retain his place in the starting lineup despite his horror show against Leicester City while the defence consisting of Leighton Baines, Ramiro Funes Mori, John Stones and Seamus Coleman looks unlikely to be changed.
In midfield, the duo of Gareth Barry and the fit again James McCarthy are set to be starting while youngsters Ross Barkley and Gerard Deulofeu will be occupying the attacking positions.
Arouna Kone has not been performing well in recent times though and the Ivorian is expected to be replaced by either Kevin Mirallas or Aaron Lennon in the starting lineup.
Romelu Lukaku continued his brilliant scoring run by finding the net once again in the clash against Leicester City and the Belgian international is certain to be leading the line for the Toffees on Saturday.
Probable Lineups
Newcastle United (Probable XI): Elliot; Dummett, Coloccini, Mbemba, Janmaat; Anita, Colback, Wijnaldum, Perez, Sissoko; Mitrovic
Everton (Probable XI): Howard; Baines, Funes Mori, Stones, Coleman; McCarthy, Barry, Deulofeu, Barkley, Mirallas; Lukaku
Last Meeting
15/03/2015 Everton 3 – 0 Newcastle United
28/12/2014 Newcastle United 3 – 2 Everton
Prediction
Heading into the game, Everton have failed to claim a victory in four Premier League matches while Newcastle United are currently unbeaten in three.
In addition, Newcastle had claimed a fine 3-2 victory over Everton in their last meeting at St. James’ Park and one can be sure that the Toffees are in for a very difficult battle on Saturday.
That said though, Everton certainly possess the fire power to be able to breach the shaky looking Newcastle backline and if they have the bit of luck which has been missing in recent times, the away side might just be able to sneak a victory on the night.
Newcastle United 1 – 2 Everton
