English Premier League: Everton vs. Manchester City Preview, Odds, Prediction

Everton awaits Man City this Monday night, in the derby of the English Premier League‘s Week 16. The two sides are in excellent shape, coming into this match with several EPL wins in a row. Everton is currently second in the standings, trailing their local rivals Liverpool just three points. On the other side, City sits sixth, but only a win away from the Toffees. After several years, we have an exciting campaign in England, with several teams involved in the chase for the top position. We advise you to take five minutes of your time and read our short preview for tonight’s event.

Preview

Everton (+600) has four in a row in the English Premier League, and during that stretch, Carlo Ancelotti’s team conceded just one goal. Unlike the start of the campaign, once their matches brought lots of scores, the Toffees are now a defensive-minded team that awaits the rival’s mistakes, trying to utilize the same.

They had a crisis period, winning once in five matches and losing against Newcastle, Leeds, and Man United. However, the experienced Italian manager sort that out, and Everton looks very good in recent time. They lost against United in the Carabao Cup, but that competition wasn’t a priority for Goodison Park’s squad.

Manchester City (-210) changed its concept of play completely. This isn’t a high-octane machine that rolls over anything that stands in its way. No, Guardiola’s philosophy is different, and City now plays low-scoring games, in which we see them scoring and, after that, keeping the ball until the end. We might say that they deliberately kill the tempo and make each affair a dull one, all that to waste as much time as possible.

But despite all that, the Citizens have excellent results, as they lost just once in the past 20 games, winning 13 matches during that period. The recent stats are revealing next – City didn’t allow a goal in eight of the past 10 encounters throughout all the competitions.

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Ancelotti has certain troubles. The Brazilian midfielder Allan is not playing, as well as Richarlison, his biggest weapon in the attack. On top of that, James Rodriguez is questionable, and his chances of appearing against City are slim. Fabian Delph, Lucas Digne, and Gbamin are out.

Guardiola has fewer problems. Kyle Walker and Gabriel Jesus are the only ones ineligible for this event.

Head to Head Matches

The gap between Everton and City when looking at the overall H2H record is narrow. The Toffees have 68 wins, compared to Sky-Blues 73; 47 contests saw no winners.

City’s rise over the past few years changed those figures a lot, and for example, the club from Manchester has won in all of the lastest five matches. Also, in each of those events, the Citizens scored twice or more.

Prediction

Ancelotti will set up ultra-conservative tactics, because he doesn’t have too many options. Especially in the situation when two of his best players are out. On the other side, everything is said about Guardiola and his gameplan over the past two months. Due to that, under 2.5 goals is our suggestion here with the odds at +130