The long-awaited draw for the final Europa League qualifying round has pitted Everton against SK Sigma Olomouc of the Czech Republic. There isn’t much to be said about Sigma other than that, according to Wikipedia, they reached the quarter finals of the 1992 UEFA Cup and “smashed” Aberdeen 8-1 in the previous round of this year’s competition. The first leg will be played at Goodison Park on August 20th, with the return fixture in the Czech Repulic scheduled for August 27th.
Hopefully the majority of Evertonians will have successfully booked flights and finalised details for their National Lampoon-style trips to Eastern Europe in time to attend the club’s annual ‘prestige’ friendly at home to Malaga this evening. The big news for Everton is that Joleon Lescott has recovered from what appears to have been a genuine hip injury to partner Joseph Yobo at the heart of the Blues’ defence. Mark Hughes refused to be drawn on whether his pursuit of the England defender has come to an end following Everton’s rejection of a third bid, so it seems likely that this now tedious affair will drag on for the remainder of the transfer window.
In other Everton-related news, Mick ‘Baz’(?) Rathbone apparently did a webchat on EvertonTV where he confirmed that Nigerian forward Yakubu is around “2-4 weeks” away from match-fitness, while Mikel Arteta is “a while away yet” and Phil Jagielka is “around half-way” through his expected recovery period. Let’s just hope that none of these develop into an Owen Hargreaves/Tomas Rosicky situation over the coming months.
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