Everton need a reaction this weekend following a really poor performance against newly-promoted Leeds United.
David Moyes’ side play host to Brighton and Hove Albion on Sunday, which will be the first official game at the new Hill Dickinson Stadium.
The Toffees will be expected to get into the win column in front of 52,000 Evertonians, so they will need to be much improved from Monday.
Brighton, meanwhile, opened up their Premier League account with a 1-1 draw against Fulham, so both sides are still awaiting their first victory.
With all that said, Paul Merson has now predicted the score for Sunday’s Merseyside clash.
Paul Merson predicts what the score will be for Everton vs Brighton
Writing in his Sportskeeda column, Merson admitted that this will be a really dangerous game for Everton.
“Everton had a really bad result last time out, it was shocking. I don’t think Brighton had the best game either against Fulham, who grabbed a point at the end.
“Everton don’t look like they’re capable of scoring tons of goals, so that could be a problem for David Moyes. It’s a new stadium they have to get used to here as well, so I’m not sure how much ‘home advantage’ they can rely on at the moment..
“Although I must admit Brighton are not the team they were last season. If you keep selling your best players all the time, sooner or later, it will catch up with you and I think it showed last weekend against Fulham.
“I think this is a really dangerous game for Everton to kick off proceedings in their stadium. But I’m still going to back them to beat Brighton by a narrow margin.”
Merson predicted Everton to win 1-0.
Jack Grealish simply has to start
With Everton still having not signed a right-winger, it means Jack Grealish simply has to start on the left wing, with Iliman Ndiaye on the right.
The Toffees barely created anything against Leeds, so even if Grealish isn’t quite up to speed, Moyes will certainly be tempted to fast-track him.
The same goes for Thierno Barry, who started on the bench at Elland Road. Beto really struggled and could come out of the team already.
Everton are still working on a deal to sign Tyler Dibling from Southampton, but it’s highly unlikely that the deal will be done in time for Sunday.
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