Everton vs. Aston Villa preview

Everton will look to record their first league victory over Aston Villa since March 2006 when Alex McLeish brings his unbeaten team to Goodison Park on Saturday.

Darren Bent, who scored twice in this fixture last season, is Villa’s only major injury worry, and McLeish will give him right up until the last moment to prove his fitness. Hopefully Bent won’t make it, as his clever movement is tailor-made to take advantage of Sylvain Distin’s complete lack of positional sense.

If Bent plays he’ll likely be partnered by long-standing figure of ridicule Emile Heskey, whose stupid DJ celebration represented the nadir of several Walter Smith/early David Moyes derby day farces. How Heskey is still playing Premier League football is beyond me; he’s a big, fat pudding and Martin O’Neill should have been sacked on the spot for spending £6m on him when Villa were 3rd or 4th in the table.

Despite losing Ashley Young and Stewart Downing, who were their two best players last season, Villa still seem to have a decent side. Charles N’Zogbia and Shay Given would have been great signings for most teams, while Alan Hutton and Jermaine Jenas (who is Jack Rodwell’s Dorian Gray) are improvements on the departed Luke Young and Nigel Reo-Coker.

Villa set up to play on the counter, which is worrying because Everton struggle with teams that are willing to sit tight and wait for an opportunity to break. The usual result is Mike Arteta, Marouane Fellaini and Rodwell passing sideways between themselves just over the halfway line until either Leighton Baines does something brilliant or Phil Neville does something shit. However, now that Arteta has moved to Arsenal there’s also the third option of John Heitinga playing a pointless diagonal pass and then posing like he’s Ronald Koeman whilst waiting for applause.

With Jermaine Beckford and Yakubu Aiyegbeni sold and Victor Anichebe injured, the onus is on Louis Saha, who is almost always either carrying a knock or just plain unfit, and Tim Cahill to provide the firepower for the foreseeable future. Denis Stracqualursi, top-scorer in Argentina last season, has come in on loan but it seems unlikely that David Moyes will throw him straight into the starting XI. If Saha doesn’t play it’ll probably end up being Cahill and Fellaini up front.

Moyes’ biggest concern will be the fitness of Baines, who is easily Everton’s best player these days, as the left-back was sent home from England duty early with a tweaked hamstring. The neither-footed Phil Neville can switch to the left easily enough and provide reasonable cover defensively, but it’s difficult to see Everton creating many chances for what is an increasingly static forward line without Baines.

Everton’s best chance of winning this is by dominating the centre of midfield. Fellaini is much better than anything Villa have, and Ross Barkley, who’ll likely start wide, has the ability to commit opposition players and make things happen. Diniyar Bilyaletdinov is also available after suspension, but it’ll probably take a few more first team injuries before the Russian non-entity finds himself starting.

Royston Drenthe, a deadline day loan signing from Real Madrid, will probably start on the bench and may play some part. He was brilliant for Holland at the U-21 Euro tournament a few years ago and looked good at Hercules last season until a pay dispute led to him going on strike. Fortunately Everton haven’t yet reached the point where they can’t afford to pay players’ wages, so hopefully he’ll get his head down and show why he was such a highly-touted prospect at Feyenoord.

It’ll be interesting to see how many people turn out for the Blue Union’s peaceful protest march, which begins behind the megastore at 2pm. Though many Evertonians remain apathetic to what goes on behind the scenes, an increasing number are coming around to the idea that the current board isn’t going to jump unless it’s pushed.

Seven successive transfer windows without purchasing a first team player isn’t good enough when the team is slipping to a point where it’s no longer capable of even reaching the Europa League, never mind threatening the top four. Despite the conveniently timed news that Kenwright will be meeting three potential buyers next week, I find it hard to believe that someone who came across as a deluded lunatic in his meeting with the Blue Union reps is the right man to make the sale.

Saturday is looking like a pretty big day all round for the club. It’s difficult to make a prediction without knowing whether Baines or Bent will feature, so I’ll just say that if Tony Hibbert, Neville and Heitinga all start then Everton are in trouble.