Everton vs Sunderland Guess the Score: can Moyes’s Goodison old boys shine?

Monsieur Salut interrupts the usual business of trying to get heating, hot water, internet and the rest working again in France to announce the return of Guess the Score after the recent, perhaps merciful break from premier League action. No Anichebe, sadly, but if Oviedo, Gibson, Pienaar and Rodwell are available, David Moyes’s faith in former Everton players may be about to be put to a stiff test …

The recent double-prize edition of Guess the Score attracted no correct entries, which is not surprising since few of us seriously hoped for a 4-0 win at Crystal Palace and even fewer feared we’d then surrender by the same margin at home to Southampton.

So as we launch the competition for the game at Everton, we can be excused for wondering which Sunderland to expect to turn up this time.

Since there were no winners for the previous two games, or for the 0-0 draw against Spurs, I shall keep the format of a double prize for a reader who is first to predict a correct winning result for Sunderland. That means two mugs along these lines …

Any other winner – ie opting for a home win or a draw – would receive a single mug. Everton supporters are naturally welcome to enter and a winner from their ranks would receive a mug with an Everton-related design (or two in the unlikely event that he or she actually and accurately forecast an away win).

Usual rules apply. My decision shall be final and the winner must provide a UK delivery address for the prize(s).

As for the match itself, I thought about it every now and then during a 1,500km drive from west London to the south of France this week. And at no time such thoughts lift my spirits. At ESPN, I shall be reluctantly predicting a straightforward Everton victory and would expect that to be followed by a routine win for Man City at the Stadium of Light on March 5.

I hope to have to eat my words.

Our Everton “Who are You?” interviewee Graeme Holmes – the full feature will appear tomorrow, by which I time I hope my fingers will have thawed sufficiently to prevent a string of typos like those I have just been correcting here  – is slightly less downbeat about our prospects as this extract shows:

Salut! Sunderland: Is our time finally up and if so, why?

Graeme: I hope not and a few weeks back, I felt with a goalscorer like Defoe in your ranks – supported by Anichebe and Borini, you would score goals, but your inability to defend was always going to be a problem. I don’t get this as the one thing Moyes did for us was improve us defensively … [but with] more teams involved, there is always a chance, and you need to win your games against the teams around you.

Let those last few words inspire Moyes and his team to produce an improbable winning display even if Everton are hardly one of the “teams around you”.

Ha’way the Lads – and check out other items at the site by visiting the home page and navigating from there.