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Key events
30 min: The free kick’s worked right to left, Grealish slamming a shot straight into the turf. The ball balloons up then looks like dipping just under the bar. Martinez is forced to tip over, but nothing comes from the corner.
29 min: Tarkowski bursts past Rogers with an elegant chop down the right. Palmer barrels in and puts a stop to his gallop by knocking him over. Palmer is fuming, but lucky not to be booked. Then from the resulting free kick …
27 min: The corner is worked back to Grealish down the left. He curls in for Barry, a perfect cross that should result in a goal. But from six yards, Barry slaps his header straight at Martinez, who makes up for his egregious error by snaffling the ball on his line.
26 min: Rohl shoots from distance. Martinez saves, then holds onto the ball for an age. The referee awards a corner by way of punishment, and Neto is booked for his incredulous reaction. And from the corner …
25 min: That tackle’s got the crowd’s dander up. In the stand, Peter Reid looks on with pride. What a player he was.
23 min: Spark! Armstrong slides in hard on Acheampong. The challenge is a bit high, and earns a yellow card. Tarkowski is livid, and gets right up in the referee’s grille, but it was a clear yellow. Mistimed rather than malicious, and though VAR has a look with a view to upgrading the punishment, it’s decided that a booking is fair enough.
21 min: Neto finds a pocket of space down the inside-right channel. He cuts back for Henderson, who attempts to pass into the bottom right from the edge of the box. Blocked. A goal at the Hill Dickinson from a former Liverpool captain would certainly have qualified as spark.
20 min: Chelsea probe the Everton box in the horseshoe style. But there’s no way into the middle. This match needs a spark.
19 min: Chelsea with the patient passing. There isn’t an awful lot going on.
17 min: … no, it’s a complete non-event. Dewsbury-Hall’s delivery easily cleared, Grealish’s ball back into the mixer sailing harmlessly out for a goal kick.
16 min: Maitland-Niles feeds Rohl on the underlap down the right. Rohl earns Everton’s first corner of the afternoon. From which …
15 min: … so having just said that, Palmer gets Chelsea’s first shot on target. It’s from long range, bouncing harmlessly towards the bottom right. Too easy for Pickford.
14 min: Chelsea have started so many of their other games this season quickly, so Everton will be pleased with this start. The visitors have shown next to nothing in attack, though they have enjoyed 69 percent of possession.
13 min: Dewsbury-Hall shields the ball from Caicedo out on the left flank and draws a foul. Garner takes the free kick, and clumsily hoicks it straight out for a goal kick.
11 min: Acheampong takes his sweet time over a throw, and earns a lecture from referee Paul Tierney. Breaking news, right here.
9 min: This match is currently being played at a non-beneficial 100 mph. “Will Merlin be a magician for Everton?” asks Richard Hirst. “Sorry.”
7 min: Pedro has taken a whack in the face and is wandering around with a mouthful of gauze. It’s been a slightly strange start to the game. Hopefully some football will break out soon.
5 min: This won’t come as a surprise, but Henderson’s every touch is met with a wall of pantomime booing. A local matter.
4 min: Grealish makes his presence felt down the left, and a throw is won. Mykolenko launches it long. Acheampong heads clear. Then as Everton try to pin Chelsea back, Grealish and Caicedo get involved in a lightly physical back-and-forth, then yap at each other in the excitable style. The referee comes across to get them to pipe down.
2 min: You’ll have noticed there was no pre-match postbag. No emails, you see. Which makes this existential howl from Evertonian Mary Waltz that’s just dropped so very apposite: “Why does no one seem to want us? Everton seems to be the unwanted step child, trying so hard but rejected by their parents.”
Everton kick off, and launch it long. Martinez claims the punt.
Before the kick-off, everyone takes the knee. It’s the first of two weeks of the Premier League’s No Room For Racism campaign. Challenge it, report it, change it.
It’s time for the theme to Z Cars … and here come the teams. Everton in their royal blue, Chelsea in a new white third strip with red pinstripe and retro lion-crawling-all-over-CFC badge. A nod to the early 1990s Commodore era. We’ll be off in a minute or two!
David Moyes talks to TNT. “If we took a few more chances and we hadn’t conceded last week, we’d have a few more points … but it happens in football … we’ve also come back in games when we’ve been getting beat … sometimes you think you should have more but when you look back on it maybe other times you could be a bit fortunate to get some points … [Vitalii Mykolenko] is the only natural left-back we have in the building at the moment, so great to have him back … [Merlin Rohl] … gives me a little more speed and dynamism … we’re up against a really good Chelsea team, especially in the front line so we might have to use Merlin in different roles as well”
Xabi Alonso speaks to TNT Sports. “We needed a win [against Bournemouth] but this was last week … one is not enough … we need to keep going, doing the right things, repeating and always improving game by game … [Reece James’ injury] makes it more limited but we have enough options … Romeo [Lavia] … [Valentin] Barco … they have played and now we have Mo [Caciedo] back and [Jordan Henderson] so we have more options … but for sure it’s a blow … we will need another big one in this stadium against Everton … tough opponent … they are in a good run so we are expecting a tough challenge.”
Everton are currently in a good humour as well. Should they win this afternoon – and given how they’ve triumphed in this fixture in six of its last nine stagings, losing just the once, that’s very much a live prospect – they’ll move into fourth spot in the Premier League, for a couple of hours at least. Chelsea can do likewise.
Fun: Chelsea have it. But for how long?
Everton make two changes in the wake of their 2-2 draw at Hull City. Merlin Röhl and Vitalii Mykolenko replace Micheal Keane and Brennan Johnson, the latter dropping to the bench.
Chelsea meanwhile make one change to the starting XI sent out to thrash Bournemouth 5-1 last weekend. Jorrel Hato comes into the defence at the expense of Pep Chavarría.
The teams
Everton: Pickford, Maitland-Niles, Tarkowski, Branthwaite, Mykolenko, Garner, Armstrong, Rohl, Dewsbury-Hall, Grealish, Barry.
Subs: Travers, O’Brien, George, Dibling, Johnson, Norgaard, Alcaraz, Hackney, Graham.
Chelsea: Martinez, Acheampong, Lacroix, Colwill, Pedro Neto, Henderson, Caicedo, Hato, Palmer, Rogers, Joao Pedro.
Subs: Penders, Palestra, Fofana, Barco, Welbeck, Quenda, Nicoll-Jazuli, Estevao, Lavia.
Referee: Paul Tierney
VAR: Nicholas Hopton
Preamble
Fifth plays sixth at the Hill Dickinson this lunchtime, in a fixture that isn’t so easy to predict. Chelsea have quickly established an identity under Xabi Alonso as the great entertainers: they’ve scored 15 goals in six matches, with 13 whistling in down the other end. Their last two results – a 3-0 loss at Brentford followed by a 5-1 rout of Bournemouth – illustrate what they’re all about right now. Everton are similarly difficult to pin down, veering between doughty low-scoring shut-out wins (2-0 Palace, 1-0 Ipswich) and rollercoaster 2-2 draws (Manchester United and Hull City, Ainsley Maitland-Niles the centre of attention in both games, for wildly different reasons). The Toffees also remain undefeated, no small feat when you consider the downcast mood around the club at the end of an unsuccessful transfer window.
Throw in the fact that Chelsea don’t particularly like coming to visit the blue half of Merseyside – they’ve lost 2-0 and 3-0 on two of their most recent three visits, the other being a goalless draw – and so while they go into this match as favourites, you wouldn’t exactly risk the farm on it. This could be great fun. Kick-off is at 12.30pm BST. It’s on!
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