**Everton travel to the north-east to face Newcastle United at St James’ Park on Monday night; kick-off is at 8 pm GMT.**
The return match of a double header created following Everton’s convincing fourth-round victory over the Geordies on Thursday night in the Carabao Cup looks like it could develop into a highly competitive game with The Geordies smarting from the result that saw them dumped out of the last 16.
They sit just a point and two places above Everton in the Premier League Table after successive defeats to Chelsea and Arsenal saw The Toffees slip rapidly down the table to 14th. But Everton have now beaten Newcastle Utd twice this season — by the same 3-1 scoreline. They say good things come in threes…
The official lineups have been announced and Newcastle are without five players, while Everton welcome back Jarrad Branthwaite. But there will be no rapprochement just yet for Jack Grealish, who needs to build back his match fitness after illness caused him to miss the Arsenal game, and he then skipped training, much to David Moyes’s displeasure.
George retains his place and Armstrong is back instead of Hackney, leaving a lot of forward-thinking attacking players on the bench.
Garner kicked off, Pickford hoofed forward, and Newcastle got possession. Go figure! An early free-kick was lofted up for Barry but he nudged his marker ever so gently… another free-kick. You can see this is going to be very scrappy.
But there was a nice move forward started by Armstrong, who then rescued the ball on the byline and it fell for Garner but his technique was abysmal. At the other end, Barnes again clipped one to the far post, just too high.
Dewsbury-Hall brilliantly played in Barry but he was just not expecting it. There was very little shape or coherence to the early exchanges, Osula seeing his cross deflected, Pickford’s clearance to Barry going out.
George tried to get involved down the right after good distribution from Garner but he was given a soft foul. Garner hurled Joelinton to the ground rather recklessly, giving the home side a chance to punt it long and straight out behind.
A Joelinton snapshot was headed away by Tarkowski for a corner, delivered well to the far post, Burn unable to get a strong contact. Everton looked good going forward but it all fell apart. Still they kept probing, a ball coming back to Armstrong on the edge of but he got his feet all wrong, Rohl then blasting over.
Mykolenko played up to Barry but he let Burn come in front of him to steal the ball easily.
Referee:John BrooksVideo Assistant Referee:Paul HowardAssistant Referee 1:Nick GreenhalghAssistant Referee 2:Steven MeredithFourth Official:Robert Madley
Assistant VAR Official:Stuart Burt