There’s always that old cliche about a club being harder to beat once the manager is sacked. In the case of Everton, that will probably be true.
Marco Silva created a squad with plenty of good players, but they were easy to score against and often struggled to create chances so they were the ideal team to play against. You have to think the temporary appointment of Duncan Ferguson will at least instill some fight in the team.
In truth, Frank Lampard’s side face a bit of an unknown challenge today as we wait to see if Ferguson makes a lot of changes in personnel or style. Whatever he has planned, Chelsea should still fancy their chances.
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A win by an 18 goal margin looks unlikely so moving above Man City wont happen, but a win would at least take them level on points with Pep Guardiola’s team ahead of their Manchester derby later on.
Clearly Lampard was happy with the midweek win over Aston Villa as he names an unchanged starting XI:
Team news is in!
Thoughts? #EVECHE pic.twitter.com/Yoqjr9PWuX
— Chelsea FC (@ChelseaFC) December 7, 2019
It’s also worth noting that Oliver Giroud and Pedro have been omitted from the squad completely. There’s no obvious suggestion that they’re injured or suspended so this could be a sign that they could be gone in January.
It will be interesting to see how the transfer ban being overturned could impact any performances. It was previously thought that nobody could be signed in January so most players could be forgiven for thinking their place in the team was safe.
Hopefully any pressure pushes them to improve and perform at a higher level.
