T
he Blues come into tonight's
cup tie looking for their first
win in five matches afterexperiencing a dip in results
during the festive fixtures.
The team had enjoyed an
upturn in fortunes following the
appointment of Sam Allardyce
as manager in late November but
the Toffees followed a goalless
draw at home to Chelsea two
days before Christmas with
another stalemate at West Brom
on Boxing Day.
Allardyce's men then slipped
to a 2-1 defeat at Bournemouth
before beginning the new year
with a 2-0 home defeat at the
hands of Manchester United as
THE VISITORS
second-half goals from Anthony
Martial and Jesse Lingard gave
the Red Devils maximum points.
Afterwards Allardyce said: “It's
a shame what happened in the
last five minutes at Bournemouth
and today. Up to then it was a
magnificent performance from
everybody, but we need to bring
a stop to the run of bad results.”
A couple of positives over the
recent run of games has seen
the return to action of winger
Yannick Bolasie and midfielder
James McCarthy.
Bolasie made his comeback
at The Hawthorns on Boxing
Day after more than a year on
the sidelines, while McCarthyplayed his first Premier League
game of the season at the
Vitality Stadium on the South
Coast last Saturday.
At the time of going to press
Allardyce was hoping to bring in
a new striker having confirmed
that the club had submitted a
bid for Besiktas' Turkish frontman
Cenk Tosun.
After seeing his side score
just once in four games, Sam
has said: “We need a bigger
goalscoring threat than we
have got and that may help us
achieve more results, although
I can't guarantee that whoever
comes in is going to score goals
right away."EVERTON FC
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EVERTON FC
Founded: 1878
Stadium: Goodison Park
Capacity: 39,572
FA Cup winners: Five times
Last FA Cup win: 1995