I do not think I am competent to assess the strength of Everton as they are literally way out of our league.
There are precedents for wins against PL clubs as we all remember in that memorable League Cup run when Dave Penney was in charge. The gap between where we are now and the PL has probably widened though and we will need an exceptional performance to compete with whatever team Everton puts out. Given their current position you would assume that they cannot contemplate losing, so you would expect them to field a strong side from the start.
The show we put up against MKD was probably the best league performance so far and a sign of progress, so there is some hope that we will not be embarrassing.
I suggest 1-3 (Faal/Maxwell)
(I've noted Mooli's 0-4.)
DPL v Everton EFL Cup
posted on 29/8/23
Everton have yet to score this season so I don't expect a glut of goals from them. All the pressure on them to do well and non on Rovers is a recipe for a surprise. I'll go 2-1to us Faal, Molyeneux.
posted on 29/8/23
I'm hoping for what Nookie predicts, but think that is a little too much for us even though the Toffees are not firing on all cylinders at the moment. I'll say Rovers 1 Toffees 2 with Faal scoring.
posted on 30/8/23
Rovers 0-4 Everton ⚽
posted on 30/8/23
Well, it's an inferior Rovers team (relatively) right now to that of 1985 and an inferior Everton team too. Therefore, I'll predict a repeat of the 1985 score - 2-0 to Everton.
I went to that game in January 1985 and at the time, Everton were one of the best teams in Europe - fabulous to watch. Rovers had the Snodin brothers playing but Ian's job was more defensive than usual, helping to keep the score down. I seem to remember that the week before the Rovers match, Everton beat Newcastle 4-0 and the week after, they beat Watford 4-0 (both first division matches), so a 2-0 reverse for Rovers was a pretty good result.
I do remember one promising attack - a run and cross from the right wing by John Buckley and a header towards goal by Colin Douglas. I think that's probably the closest we got to scoring.
posted on 30/8/23
A lot better from Rovers. Just ran out of steam at the end. Moving to a 352 formation might be the answer in the League.
posted on 30/8/23
Well done Micky for forecasting the correct score - up to 70 + minutes though it looked as if we could all be wrong!
posted on 31/8/23
I wanted a win, but thought it a little too far. However, without the 30M plus signing, could we have held on?
Can we please play more like this in the league?
I have not read any detailed report about Everton's goals - were they preventable?
posted on 31/8/23
The extended highlights are on iFollow. For the first goal Olowu failed to make the tackle and was outrun anyway and Lawlor could not get a hand to it. I suppose he might have reacted sooner. The second was the result of skilful play and beating several defenders on the edge of the penalty area and putting a good shot past Lawlor who I don't think you could "blame" for the goals even though a bit of extra skill might have been good enough to save both.
Social media is effusive in praise of the performance, but I thought Everton were poor. They did not have much of a plan and their movement was not impressive. Perhaps I could best express my opinion by saying that some of the League 2 teams we have been up against this season would have at least drawn and might well have beaten them, especially on their first half performance.