Jeff Stelling predicts Everton showdown v Newcastle United in Premier League
Jeff Stelling predicts Everton will suffer a third consecutive defeat in the Premier League on Wednesday night when they take on Newcastle United at St James’ Park.
Frank Lampard’s men have lost two on the bounce to Manchester United and Tottenham, leaving them 14th in the Premier League table going into the upcoming midweek fixtures.
Writing on Sky Sports’ Super 6 website, Stelling backed the Magpies to win 2-0 against the Toffees with Eddie Howe’s side currently in good form and sitting in the top six.
Can’t lose again
Lampard has overseen a positive start to the season.
Our only defeats have been against Chelsea, Man United, Spurs and Aston Villa, which is just about acceptable given how low we finished last term.
However, it’s been the draws that have hampered us so far having failed to beat Nottingham Forest, Brentford and Leeds before picking up wins over West Ham and Southampton.
If it’s only the big teams who can beat us this term – plus one or two outside of the big-six – then that’s acceptable, really.
But losing to Newcastle would be a blow.
They’re the club we want to try and catch up with really before they steam off into the distance thanks to all the money they’ve now got from Saudi Arabia.
Howe’s done a good job there in fairness but we need to be competitive in this game and at least return to Merseyside with a point.
We’d take a draw to arrest this little slump we’ve had but we really don’t want to suffer a third defeat in a row.