Jamie Carragher makes Everton Premier League prediction after what he saw v Sporting
Jamie Carragher has admitted that he expects Everton to be a “hard watch” this season, but thinks they will avoid relegation to the Championship.
The Toffees avoided the drop on the final day of last season and have since added Arnaut Danjuma and Ashley Young to their squad, with young striker Youssef Chermiti expected to sign this week too.
But Carragher believes the team will be difficult to play against and hard to watch too, and while speaking on The Overlap (8 August) has backed the Toffees to finish either 14th or 15th in the Premier League this season.
“I think Everton will be a hard team to play against, but they’ll be a hard watch,” he said.
“I think the way Sean Dyche plays they’re going to be very direct. I saw the team that played in the friendly against Sporting Lisbon, big powerful team. Look at the midfield, lots of energy. Not great creativity. Not going to score a lot of goals. But you always feel like a Sean Dyche team will win 1-0, draw 1-1 or lose 1-0.
“You know, they’re always going to be in games. I don’t think you’ll see Everton under Sean Dyche getting walloped 3/4-0 every week. It won’t be that type of team, or doing that themselves to the opposition.
“I think they’ll always be in games and I think [they’ll finish] 14th/15th.”
Take it
It seems quite crazy to say but at this stage of the transfer window and knowing what we know, taking a 15th place finish wouldn’t be mad right now.
With the new stadium coming next year, we have to be in a better position than we are right now and 15th would be an improvement on our league position and would also mean that we likely weren’t in a relegation battle in the final weeks.
Dyche brings stability to this club and that is exactly what is needed right now, so it can’t be a bad thing to have him getting his players in and bringing his version of football to Everton.
Carragher knows the club well despite being a Liverpool legend and while he knows this isn’t the ultimate goal for us, he speaks sense about what to expect this season from the team.
So long as we survive and aren’t having sleepless nights towards the end of the season, then it’s something we can build on in the new stadium next season.
In other Everton news, Dyche may have made a transfer decision after an official club announcement.