Burnley vs Everton

Burnley and Everton clash at Turf Moor early Thursday morning Beijing time. This is the best league in the world, but I am afraid this will not be a particularly good match for football lovers to watch.

. It is a match between two quite weak teams for this level. The stakes are high here though as both teams are in a fierce battle to avoid relegation. Everton are a very traditional English team with a lot bigger resources than Burnley. The season has been a horrific disappointment for them after many pretty strong seasons! Burnley have been one of the relegation candidates for many season in a row know but have been able to save themselves. However, they will very probably finally relegate after this season. Indeed, the teams who place 18th-20th will play in The Championship next season. Burnley are currently in the 19th place and in very bad form. I simply do not see them having the potential to save themselves. By players’ individual skill they are perhaps even worse than the rock-bottom team, Norwich but do fight very hard and are better as a team than the list of players would indicate. Everton are in the 17th place but have played 2 matches less than Watford in the 18th place. They would probably be pretty happy with a draw here and are expected to play with a rather cautious, defensive strategy and formation here. They will surely not be very confident after poor results away from home. Burnley are extremely limited offensively and have been unable to create reasonable numbers of goal expectancy even at home and have failed to score in any of their latest 4 matches! Against Manchester City they were completely dominated but City seemed to be saving energy and won “only” 2-0 at Turf Moor last weekend.

Everton have not really  got the boost from hiring the Chelsea legend Frank Lampard but have potential for a lot better performances, especially defensively. They have a long list of missing players today though but the hosts have many absentees as well. They were not hopelessly bad in their most recent match against a good team West Ham last weekend despite the 1-2 away from home loss. A few weeks ago they beat an improved Newcastle 1-0 despite having playing with 10 men for a long time! Everton +0.5 goals handicap option has a high chance of winning as the match is in my view a very balanced one!