View: Pickford and Gordon come in – Predicted Everton XI v Sheffield United
Everton continue their festive football with a trip to Bramall Lane, where they take on struggling Sheffield United on Saturday night.
The Toffees come into this game just days after a 2-0 defeat in the Carabao Cup quarter-final and the busy schedule leaves Carlo Ancelotti with some decisions to make ahead of the game.
Richarlison went off with a sickening injury against Manchester United and although he has tweeted to confirm he is recovering well, he is surely not going to make the team to face Chris Wilder’s side.
In goal, Ancelotti confirmed that whoever did not start between Jordan Pickford and Robin Olsen against Man United would come in for the Premier League game, so the former gets the nod here.
Seamus Coleman made his return midweek, so Mason Holgate can expect to return to the right-side of defence for the Premier League game.
Elsewhere throughout the defence, it is unchanged for Everton – with Yerry Mina, Michael Keane and Ben Godfrey all simply playing too well for anything to be changed unless it is required to do so.
Three league wins in a row and only one goal conceded justifies the decision to push on with the same back four.
With Allan still sidelined, Tom Davies and Abdoulaye Doucoure could continue at the base of a midfield three.
Ahead of the pair, Gylfi Sigurdsson is the man to provide the creativity in the final third, with James Rodriguez not expected back until January at the very least.
With no Richarlison, Ancelotti has a big decision to make going forward. We recently made a claim for Anthony Gordon to come into the team – so we are sticking to our guns with this prediction.
Quite where he fits in is the other conundrum, with neither Bernard nor Alex Iwobi consistently impressing this season.
The latter has been on a good run of form, so we rewarding him with another start, behind Dominic Calvert-Lewin, of course.
In other Everton news, Dimitar Berbatov predicts result of Everton v Sheffield United clash