Everton v Crystal Palace: betting preview, odds, stats and free tip

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

Where to watch

BT Sport 1, 12.30pm Saturday

Best bet

Everton-Everton double result
1pt 33-20 Coral

Team news

Everton
Fabian Delph is suspended. Jean-Philippe Gbamin and Andre Gomes remain sidelined.

Crystal Palace
Cenk Tosun is on loan from the Toffees and can’t play against his parent club. Mamadou Sakho and Jeffrey Schlupp are out.

Match preview

The stakes couldn’t be higher for Roy Hodgson so it’s a shame for the Crystal Palace boss that he can’t play his trump card against Everton at Goodison Park.

The Eagles manager signed only one player during the window, striker Cenk Tosun, whose job it is to score the goals to keep them in the Premier League.

However, Tosun has joined on loan from Everton, and is ineligible to play at Goodison Park, meaning Hodgson will have to ask Christian Benteke (one league goal in the last 22 months) or Jordan Ayew to lead an unproductive forward line.

It’s hardly ideal for Hodgson, who was hugely disappointed that so little transfer activity happened last month with his team on a run of just one win in 11 matches.

Most of their misfortunes are at Selhurst Park rather than on the road – indeed their last away day resulted in a magnificent 2-2 draw at Manchester City.

But there followed back-to-back home losses to Southampton and Sheffield United without a goal being scored and they find themselves six points from safety.

Palace boast the fewest shots in the top flight – 237, exactly 100 fewer than Everton have registered – and the lowest shots-on-target average of just 3.08 per game.

If it doesn’t happen via Wilfried Zaha it seems increasingly unlikely that it is going to happen at all and Palace are worth taking on on Merseyside.

Everton's price might look short enough given that two games ago they were behind Palace in the table.

However, the teams have been heading in opposite directions for weeks with Everton’s only reverses in their last 12 games coming against Manchester City and Liverpool.

Carlo Ancelotti has re-energised the club and comments made by Alex Iwobi this week suggested the dressing room has an entirely different – and positive – feel about it now that the wise Italian is at the chalkboard.

Last week, for example, they came from 2-0 down to win 3-2 at Watford, the type of comeback which would have been unlikely under Marco Silva.

Palace are at least tough to break down under Hodgson with a combative midfield three protecting a decent enough back four and Vincent Guaita’s blunder against the Blades last week was only noteworthy because he has otherwise been so good.

But if Everton do get in front, the chances are they will stay there and backing the Everton-Everton double result could pay.

Palace haven’t scored inside the first 30 minutes of a league match since September and have failed to score a first-half goal in 80 per cent of their games.

There are three points between the sides in the table, but 15 between them in the first-half table. Take Everton to get in front and stay there.