Saints travel to Goodison Park perhaps without Steven Davis whos fitness is eagerly waited upon following a groin injury picked up whilst representing Northern Ireland. However, where the international break only served as bad news for his club, Graziano Pelle may rediscover the net for his club as he did for his country (that’s if we can offer him forgiveness for his opener against England). It’s no secret Frazer Forster is being kept from the squad – a huge miss – for at least the rest of the season, but just as one of Ronald Koeman’s aces temporarily bites the dust another, undergoing a prolonged period on the side lines, another just returning from one could feature instead. Not that we expect Jay Rodriguez to be donning the gloves though.
One of Everton’s key performers – Romelu Lukaku – will face the same face as Southampton’s Davis. A late test of whether or not he will be available for selection. He didn’t get quite as far as the latter though, pulling out of travelling with the Belgium team. Darron Gibson looks doubtful but attacking duo Kevin Mirallas and Steven Pienaar have recovered from dead legs and knee niggles respectively.
You’d expect the visitors to be the slightly more favoured due to their positioning in the Barclay’s Premier League and a desire for a top four finish. On the other hand (for you stat lovers!), Everton have emerged victorious from encounters with their Saturday rivals. 39 wins in comparison to the South coast outfit’s 24, 18 stalemates also. You could suggest this is a thing of the past with the Toffees failing to score at the right end of the pitch in three out of four of their last meetings with Southampton. In fact, they gifted Southampton three own goals in the last two of those. The fixture is situated at Everton’s own abode – a place where Southampton have either had to share the spoils or return home with no fruits at all in the last nine visits. They’ll be relying on Martinez’s men’s poor form there also (four wins out of fifteen, ouch).
A magical month was march for Saints, one that their next opponents should fear. They’ll be hoping for a repeat of the reverse fixture at St Mary’s in which they scored one for each point. Whereas Everton wouldn’t mind something similar to their emphatic 1996 record Premier League triumph which was, ironically, against Southampton, 7-1. The two sides couldn’t be having more differing campaigns. Southampton could take Everton’s place in the Europa League although they’d much prefer Champions League, no doubt. Perhaps a lack of European football will prove beneficial to the Toffees but we’ll have to wait and see.
