A look ahead to Everton v Leicester City

So on we go, as only a team that thrashed a Swiss outfit still groggy from a two-month break can go on.

Boss though wasn’t it? If you squinted enough you could see the exciting Everton of last year doing all sorts of ace stuff in the unforgiving sharp air of an arl European night.

No one will be too confident we’ve rode this particular shitstorm until we’re dandy on the back of a few wins and moving the ball around as cocky as we once were, if indeed we do progress to that stage again anytime soon.

Thursday’s slick Everton on the artificial surface has left me hoping they find rare water otter voles on the Walton Park site and that Pitz step in with a rival offer, such was the quality of our attacking play. You can just tell how devastating Barkley must be on astro turf too can’t you? Hope he fares better than Preki in his conversion.

It’s a short one this week as the games are coming thick and fast and who can really be arsed to read more than a few paragraphs about the game anyway?

Leicester are our chosen foes and they come to Goodison Park having a dog of a season, their early season exuberance evaporated as the superior/more expensive players of the other teams in the league have gave their own team a prolonged case of the jitters.

Teetering on the brink of the traditional mid season newly promoted team sacking is prized plum Nigel Pearson who has the smug satisfaction of the fella who got the last sausage in the chippy queue of an evening. He’s a man’s man though, the type who will arm wrestle his teenage son’s mates on a sleep over and show them pervy photos of his wife with her taegs out on holiday in Cancun. Can’t wait to see someone clean his clock right out.

Leicester’s players are a mish mash of subdued talent and misplaced optimism. In the reverse fixture we were promised that a slick midfield would rise to the fore this season and get them the prized stabilising of comfort in their first season up top.

A lot to admire about how they went about their business refusing to splurge top dollar on gnarly pros that have scraped a few seasons in the Premier League and use this to bargain hard on said experience being needed to keep them in top division. They did pay a chunk for striker Ulloa in the summer, who looks as questionable as your mate’s dar who drives a fiesta, despite this he has managed to hit an impressive nine goals so far this season. Not sufficient enough it would seem as Leicester then went and blew a bigger chunk on some Croat called Kramaric. We’ll see who starts in due time.

Midfield contains the once ace Cambiasso, a fine player but one nearing the end of his time. Our midfield is bound to be rotated so whoever is in there will need to get a grip early doors against a fading but still very capable ace midfielder. They will be relying on their wide men to cause us problems when they break, probably Mahrez and that little beaut Allbrighton on the wings. On any sort of form our chosen left back and Coleman would punish them hard for even having ponderous thoughts about getting past our half way line but alas we’re not as strong down the sides as we were in the past.

Perennial rent-a-grock Robert Huth is now in Leicester colours and ready to supplex our centre forwards from a set piece while the referee waves on, and they may even choose to play five at the back like they’ve experimented with of late. Kasper Schmeichel is returning from injury but not fit for this game so there’ll be either Hamer or Schwartzer taking his place, whatever the glib faced pie pony Pearson decides really. Bet you he does his bicep curls in front of the mirror with a towel round his neck snarling at himself in evident glee. Grip him Duncan please.

You know what we’re going to get, they are gonna sit deep realising fully well that against such tactics we have the impotency of a doubled dropped gary from 1997. Or maybe we have a wee bit more confidence now and should brush them aside.

Not really much to report back on Leicester as a place and people. It’s a bit nondescript, and I’m sure they like it that way. So unless they beat us or act like Soccer AM banter chanting zombies in the away end. So they get a pass this time and if they behave possibly next time we play them too.

We still talking about football? Suppose I better mention Everton then.

Hoping that the away result mid week reminds them that they really do have some ace players who can play better football than most teams. Impressive to come back so strongly after dipping the first goal. After our the second goal gave Young Boys a sense of anxiety you could see Everton’s confidence grow.

Suddenly we looked very sharp indeed as soon as we moved the ball beyond the halfway line. Difference is that Young Boys didn’t sit deep and came at us, and without sounding like we are all that it just isn’t the same in the Premier League as teams know better than to play to our strengths.

Once thing that can kickstart our season is regularly scorer of goals, and Lukaku is someone adept at that. His first hat trick in Everton colours rubbed off on all around him. Apart from Mirallas who was rubbish. Naismith was tidy and more effective and Barkley had his best game for quite some time. How much of all that was a return to form or the average opposition I don’t know, but it was pleasant to watch.

There’ll be some changes with the second of four games in quick succession so I would hazard a guess that Atsu will feature more prominently and McCarthy coming off early should signal his place in midfield as Barry is suspended for this. Besic looks the safer bet to accompany him. Aaron Lennon does indeed weirdly play for us and may take the other wing.

John Stones showed his not as infallible as he seems as the big French lad game him a difficult time, but have no doubt in your head that he will learn from that. Distin seems to have deleted Martinez from Facebook so I can’t see beyond Jagielka and Alcaraz starting as centre backs for this. Coleman was back in the goals but still nowhere near where he can be, and Baines is touch and go for it, although left back is the one place we can afford an absence with the relative talent we have accrued there. Howard, predictably, will play in goal. Most Evertonians have an opinion on that but this preview was promised to be short and sweet.

So squeezed between two sessions of Young Boys we have at the mo Leicester. For all the escapism of the European games it’s the league that really does validate your season. It’s perfectly possible for relative runs of success to co-exist in both so hopefully that first win in midweek as the first move, as the fixture list could have been harder right now.

In a week where people are looking to the Bears in the sky it is the Foxes on the ground that should perturb Everton the most. We have more than enough to deal with them, but do we realise it?

Right into them.