Everton v Arsenal: prediction, team news, odds and free tip

Free football tips, best bets and analysis for Everton v Arsenal in the Premier League.

Where to watch

Live on BT Sport 1, 12.30pm Saturday

Best bet

Everton
2pts 7-5 bet365, Betfred
Back this tip with bet365

Team news

Everton
Gylfi Sigurdsson and Djibril Sidibe should return after illness. Lucas Digne and Fabian Delph could also be fit.

Arsenal
Sokratis is suspended and Kieran Tierney, Rob Holding, Sead Kolasinac and Dani Ceballos are out. Mesut Ozil and Hector Bellerin are doubts.

Match preview

Caretaker bosses Duncan Ferguson and Freddie Ljungberg have one last hurrah in their temporary roles and Big Dunc looks poised to have a more enjoyable farewell.

Ferguson and Ljungberg sign off at Goodison Park, quite possibly under the watchful eyes of the men who are replacing them, and hosts Everton look the better bet.

The Toffees have improved markedly in three games under the Scot, so Carlo Ancelotti must be quietly pleased about what he is going to inherit.

Incoming Arsenal boss Mikel Arteta, on the other hand, may be just a few seats away from the Italian in the directors’ box but he looks light years away from being able to pick a team capable of turning around the club's fortunes.

There is virtually no evidence that the Gunners have improved at all since Ljungberg replaced Unai Emery and they head to Merseyside on a run of just one win in 12 games.

That 3-1 victory at West Ham flattered Arsenal and had the match stopped after an hour it may well have gone down as the worst performance in their history.

The miserable sequence of not keeping a clean sheet has continued and the run now stands at 14. Arsenal aren’t short of defenders on their books but they are certainly lacking good ones.

The Ljungberg appointment, albeit a temporary one, hasn’t worked and has proved that the problem wasn’t simply Emery.

Compare and contrast that with Everton, who look unrecognisable under Duncan Disorderly compared to the indifferent shambles bequeathed to him by the patently incapable Marco Silva.

Ferguson's three matches in charge have all been serious tests but his side bullied a resurgent Chelsea into submission two weeks ago, followed that up with a deserved 1-1 draw at Manchester United, and then played well for the last half-hour at Leicester in a 2-2 League Cup draw. They went on to lose the penalty shootout.

Intriguingly, Ferguson has achieved this despite an injury crisis which effectively stripped him of central midfielders at the King Power on Wednesday.

Mason Holgate finished up partnering Tom Davies and, like Leighton Baines, Alex Iwobi, Theo Walcott, Dominic Calvert-Lewin and several others, Holgate seems to have been re-energised under the Scot.

To that end it seems likely that Everton would love to give Ferguson a dream send-off, and they look equipped to do so.

They have scored in each of their last five games – nine goals in total – and are firing off more shots than the Gunners.

Perhaps more significantly, they are also giving up fewer shots than the Londoners – Everton are allowing their opponents 10.3 shots on target per game and Arsenal an alarming 16.4.