England strikers past and present will square off on Saturday when Harry Kane’s Tottenham travel to Goodison Park to face an Everton side buoyed by the return of Wayne Rooney. Both teams are off to a slow start to the season, with four points apiece for each, and much is at stake in this game. It is unlikely to be a high scoring affair and recent head-to-heads between these two on Merseyside have seen plenty of bore draws, so 2.5 goals might be the way to go. Tottenham are the favourites, but Everton are a tough nut to crack and the outrights are difficult to call.
Spurs are in a bit of a quandary this season after decamping to Wembley for their home games while their new stadium is built. Last season White Hart Lane was a fortress as they remained unbeaten at home and won 17 of 19 matches. They struggled a bit on the road and could only finish second behind Chelsea, but if only home form were to count then Tottenham would have coasted it. But they have struggled at Wembley and had a disastrous Champions League campaign there. That trend has persisted this season as they have taken just one point from two home games so far. If they cannot end their Wembley hoodoo they are going to have to really sharpen their performances away from home to have any chance of challenging for the title.
They earned a hard-fought win over Newcastle at St James’s Park on the opening day of the season, but Goodison is a much harder place to go. Everton may have lost Romelu Lukaku this summer, but Ronald Koeman has bolstered his squad with £142 million worth of talent. Everton now have a new spine in Jordan Pickford, Michael Keane, Gylfi Sigurdsson and Rooney and it is looking strong. But Tottenham’s is arguably the strongest in the business, with Hugo Lloris, Tony Alderweireld, Jan Vertonghen, Eric Dier, Mousa Dembele, Dele Alli and Kane blessed with the strength and talent to overwhelm most teams.
Under 2.5 goals looks interesting at 1.91 with Sun Bets and 1.90 with Bet Victor. Last season this fixture ended in a 1-1 draw, and it was the same story in 2015-16. The previous season Spurs won 1-0 and the year before that it was 0-0. So lots of low-scoring, tight and rather drab encounters. There have been more goals at White Hart Lane– Spurs’ 3-2 win last season was a thrilling anomaly, because the season before that it finished 0-0 in north London – but at Goodison Park it is regularly a low-scoring encounter.
More of the action is going on Spurs on the outrights and that makes sense when you look at the two teams on paper. One big difference is that Spurs are a settled side with plenty of continuity, while Everton have totally overhauled their squad and have lots of players that need time to bed in and gel with one another. That could swing it just in Tottenham’s favour, so the 2.15 available at Bet Victor on a Tottenham win looks interesting. You might want to cover yourself with Spurs draw not bet, but the best price available is just 1.55 with Marathon Bet.
The goal scorer market looks tempting here. Kane kept up his astonishing run of never having scored in August, but that cursed month is behind him and he looked sharp for England in the internationals and scored with a neat finish against Malta. You can get 2.30 with Unibet among others in our green listed bookmakers page, on him to score at any time, while Rooney is 3.60 with the same bookmaker. At 3.30 Dele Alli is another great option as he has been in devastating form and can really trouble this Everton defence with his runs from deep.
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