Michael Ball gives ’embarassed’ verdict ahead of Aston Villa vs Everton in Premier League
Michael Ball has warned Everton they must learn lessons ahead of facing Aston Villa after being left “embarrassed” the last time they met in the Premier League.
The Villans ran out 4-0 winners at Villa Park on 20 August – the second game of the season – and have gone from strength to strength since then.
Everton did exact some revenge by winning 2-1 in the Carabao Cup the following month, but Unai Emery’s men were not at full strength that day.
Writing in his column for the Liverpool Echo [9 January], former Everton player Ball said: “Villa are a fantastic club and are games against them are always good with two big teams having a go at each other.
“We’ve got to learn from how they beat us at the start of the season when they played in between the lines.
“John McGinn was finding holes in the middle and Everton had a real off-day so hopefully Dyche and his coaching staff – who went back to Villa and won in the Carabao Cup after that – won’t be surprised by that this time around.
“As a player you want to test yourself against the best. They embarrassed us last time and we have to make sure that doesn’t happen again.”
Turn it around
Villa have been superb this season and enter this weekend’s contest sitting second in the Premier League with more than half the campaign gone.
Not only that, the Villans are through to the knockout stages of the Europa Conference League and are also still in FA Cup contention.
However, Everton showed in that cup tie four months ago that they are capable of beating Villa, even if Emery’s men were without the likes of Emi Martinez and Ollie Watkins that day.
Everton have lost four and drawn one of their past five games in all competitions, but this could be the ideal game to help get things back on track.
Even accounting for this blip, Everton are a much better side now than they were in the early weeks of the season and have no doubt learned lessons from the four-goal reverse in the Midlands.
In other Everton news, “unforeseen factors” have been raised as the Toffees brace themselves to hear back from the Premier League.