Brighton travel to Merseyside at the weekend to face Everton, with the Blues hoping to get back to winning ways after defeat at Old Trafford last week ended their three-game winning streak. Marco Silva’s side had a series of opportunities to expose yet another poor performance from Jose Mourinho’s side but failed to make them count despite a late penalty from Sigurdsson.
At the other end of the form table lay Chris Hughton’s side; showing plenty of resilience so far this season, the Seagulls are searching for their third league win in a row, including an impressive victory over Manchester United. A win on Saturday will see Brighton surge into 11th place in the table, reflecting the stark improvement made within camp from last season. Key to their positive start has been a strong home record which has offset continued struggles on the road. Winning just one from five, Hughton will be desperate for his team to come out swinging against Everton and overtake them this weekend.
From a statistical standpoint, things aren’t massively in their favour; Everton are unbeaten in their last four league meetings with Brighton (W2 D2) since a 3-1 away loss in 1982. Indeed, the last meeting between the two sides saw Everton secure a routine 2-0 win at Goodison Park with goals from Cenk Tosun and Gaetan Bong (own goal). Winning their last two league home games without conceding, it’ll be a tough ask for Brighton to break that record on Saturday such is the form of Michael Keane and Kurt Zouma, but any hopes of doing so are likely to rely heavily on the shoulders of Glenn Murray. The forward has scored six of the Seagull’s 11 Premier League goals in 2018/19, corresponding to 55% – the only player to score more than half of his clubs’ goals in the competition this year.
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Everton will be without Phil Jagielka and Jonjoe Kenny on Saturday, with the duo suffering from minor injuries that are set to keep them out until next week. James McCarthy is also out of action as he looks to build upon his fitness, having featured for the Under-23’s last Friday. In midfield, Andre Gomes and Gylfi Sigurdsson will be the main sources of creativity for Marco Silva’s side, providing chances on a plate for Tosun.
Meanwhile, Brighton are without Pascal Grob and Davy Propper who are likely to return after the international break. Izquierdo and Jahanbakhsh will be pivotal to Brighton’s hopes of taking something away from Goodison Park, with their delivery key to ensuring Murray has the chance to retain an impressive start to the season.
