Now then, we come to a game that we’ve been waiting the best part of a month for – home to Everton in the FA Cup. It is Boro’s reward for dumping out Doncaster Rovers in the last round, and – optimistically speaking – our chance to get some sort of revenge on them for knocking us out of the Worthington Cup. If only we made it to pelanties that night, now we know how bad Premier League teams are at them…
If you try to work out what side Roberto Martinez is likely to put out at the Lamex, you will end up with a headache. Trust us – after trying to predict Graham Westley’s team selection all season, we know what we’re talking about. For Martinez, he knows he needs to pick this team with next week’s game against Liverpool in mind… but a replay won’t do his men any favours in the search for Champions League football.
For us, it’s a distraction from the league. There are two schools of thought on this one – do you want to win this game, or beat Crewe on Tuesday, if offered the choice? That’s for your innards to work out – the bottom line is that you can be assured GW will have the lads well up for this one. And just as well, because we think this is harder than Newcastle (2011) and Tottenham (2012). But stranger things have happened.
The Toffees have a good record in the FA Cup. In each of the last three seasons, you’ll have found them in the fifth round. And if you take out neutral venues like Switzerland, Everton have not lost away from home in the FA Cup since 2005/6. Can we break that run? Will we need a replay to get past them? Will Paul Rideout play? We’ve always got plenty to say; not much of it has been about old Toffees…
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| 28 Aug 2013 | A | Capital One Cup R2 | 1-2 |
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The man asked to keep everything fair and above board this weekend is Anthony Taylor. Now there’s no real reason why you should know much about this fella, because you might say we’re not that close. But we go right back – 2005 to be exact, and a Conference game at Southport. It was the first of three games in which we’ve encountered Mr Taylor, and we’ve lost them all – we’ll take that pause as an intake of breath.
What’s Mr Taylor’s beef this season we hear you ask on the exhale. Well, we’ll tell you now. He’s mostly seen treading the boards in the Premier League these days, and he’s been seen out and about with Everton three times already. The Toffees’ record under Taylor this year is two wins and one draw, if that matters. Meanwhile, there are very few instances where a team hasn’t scored when Taylor has been in charge. A help?
This season for Anthony Taylor:
Games: 18 — Yellow: 61 (3.39pg), Red: 2
Our record under Anthony Taylor:
P0 W0 D0 L3 F3 A6 — Yellow: 9, Red: 0
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Team:
Day; Smith, Jones, Ashton, Hartley; Morais, Heslop, Doughty, Freeman; Akins, Zoko
Let’s get one thing straight before we start – we had no control over the Everton team for this one, so the likes of Coleman, Pienaar and Barkley featured. We kept the Boro’ side as it was for last week’s match against Notts County and found that things weren’t too tough. We had plenty of possession, if few attempts on goal. Needless to say, it was the quality of Everton’s players that created the chances.
And it was just one of those chances that Everton needed. Morais and Smith had a bit of a moment on 40′, which eventually led to the ball being pinged across for Lukaku to score at the second attempt. Chris Day made a fantastic save from a similar situation in the second half, before Boro’ went real close on three occasions in the last five minutes. Disappointed, but not humiliated – this game in a nutshell.
FT: Stevenage 0-1 Everton (Lukaku 40′)
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If there was ever a time to take advantage of a risk-free £10 bet from Titan Bet, it’s the FA Cup! With a huge 81 options to tickle your financial fancy, there are big rewards on offer. We start with the headline price – we’re 11/1 to win and 5/1 to draw, while those who are feeling morbid about our prospects can go with 1/4. Both teams to score? Well, that’s 19/20 and over 3.5 goals is 13/10. And there are plenty of alternative options…
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