Everton vs Crystal Palace Prediction: Eze to help right his Red Devils wrongs

There are six winless Premier League sides heading into the competition's sixth round this weekend, and two of them - Everton and Crystal Palace - meet at Goodison Park on Saturday (15:00).

Read below for my Everton vs Crystal Palace prediction and all the latest team news ahead of this meeting on Merseyside.

Team News

The big team news for Everton is that last season's Players' Player of the Year, Jarrad Branthwaite, completed 90 minutes for the U21s against Sunderland last Sunday and should be fit enough to return to the first team this weekend. The 22-year-old should start in place of Michael Keane at Goodison to resume his centre-back partnership with James Tarkowski, but Blues are waiting nervously in case Sean Dyche continues to place his faith - which seems misplaced - in Keane.

Nathan Patterson also featured in that 4-3 victory over Sunderland, playing just over an hour in Southport, and could return to the squad on Saturday, though James Garner is likely to continue at right-back with club captain Seamus Coleman still out injured.

Vitalii Mykolenko missed last weekend's 1-1 draw at Leicester City through illness but has recovered and should replace Ashley Young at left-back, while Idrissa Gueye is also back in contention after a family bereavement kept him out of the trip to the King Power Stadium.

Strikers Youssef Chermiti and Armando Broja remain out, however.

Football Odds

Crystal Palace head coach Oliver Glasner reacted to an awful first-half display against Manchester United at Selhurst Park last Saturday evening by withdrawing Jean-Philippe Mateta and Adam Wharton at half-time and bringing on Ismaila Sarr and Jefferson Lerma. The substitutes impressed sufficiently in the goalless draw to enter the Austrian's starting XI thinking ahead of the trip to Goodison, with Mateta and Daichi Kamada most likely to make way for the duo.

Cheick Doucoure, Chadi Riad, Matheus Franca and Rob Holding are definitely ruled out of Saturday's match, but on-loan Chelsea defender Trevoh Chalobah could recover from injury to make his Eagles debut from the bench.

Everton vs Crystal Palace Odds

*Please click on the link above to be taken to the main Everton vs Crystal Palace page on betfred.com (or app) for all the live betting prices on this match.

Everton lost their first four league games this season but recovered to draw with Leicester last time out and are 13/8 to go one better on Saturday, giving the Toffees an implied win probability of 38.1%, while Palace are 7/4, or a 36.4% chance, to triumph for the first time themselves in the 2024/25 Premier League campaign.

Three of the last five head-to-heads, including the most recent at Goodison in February, have ended in a draw, and you can get 12/5 for another stalemate this weekend.

Both teams to score is 4/6 and over 2.5 total goals is 10/11, while Everton's Dominic Calvert-Lewin (21/10) leads the anytime scorer market, followed by Palace attacker Eberechi Eze (11/5).

Player to Receive a Card - Orel Mangala (EVE) @ 3/1

Meetings between Everton and Palace over recent years have produced their fair share of cards, with a Blues player sent off in two of the last five.

My first tip for Saturday's contest is for an Everton midfielder, Orel Mangala, to go into the referee's notebook. The 26-year-old was brought in on loan from Lyon on transfer deadline day last month and has since made three appearances under Dyche, starting and finishing the last two - a 2-1 home defeat to Southampton in the Carabao Cup, and last weekend's stalemate in the East Midlands, where he used to play his football with Nottingham Forest.

Mangala should get the nod again this weekend and looks a good bet in the card market having picked up six yellows in 20 Premier League outings for Forest last season. He's yet to be cautioned as an Everton player but committed two fouls at the King Power last Saturday and will have a big job on his hands against Palace as he tries to get to grips with the Eagles' mercurial playmaker Eze, who has been fouled an average of 2.2 times per game in the league this season (1.8 in 2023/24).

Eze tends to operate on the left-hand side of the Palace attack, receiving the ball between the lines, and his movement could prove troublesome for Mangala who, alongside Gueye, is likely to be tasked with supporting stand-in right-back Garner, which could see him in close contact with Eze.

Anytime Goal Scorer - Eberechi Eze (CRY) @ 11/5

Talking of Eze, I'm going to back Palace's main man to put last weekend's woes behind him and get back in the goals at Goodison on Saturday.

The 26-year-old had arguably the Eagles' best two opportunities against Manchester United but rushed his first effort when he had time to take a touch, and was wayward with his second.

Eze only has one Premier League strike to his name this term - the equaliser in a 1-1 draw with Chelsea at Stamford Bridge on September 1 - and he will be desperate to boost his tally against Everton to help inspire his side out of their winless run in the league.

Everton are yet to keep a clean sheet in five Premier League outings this season and have shipped 14 goals across those games, which should give Eze confidence heading into their meeting on Merseyside.

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