PaddyPower
Player Valuation: £225k
Everton v West Brom - 27/11/10
We all remember the Creeper. And who could forget the Zipper? And what about the Gerbil? No, we're not telling an understanding police psychologist about that sleepover at Richard Gere's house, we're reliving the 70s fad that was the yo-yo. A fad - that in fairness to it - has been going close to 3,000 years. We'll see if anyone's boring us with what they think about Wagner on Twitter in the year 5010.
It's all in honour of the next club making the trip to Goodison Park - the always word-count friendly West Bromich Albion. The Boing-Boing Baggies. A yo-yo club and proud of it. We're never certain about the 'boing boing' bit for a couple of reasons. Firstly, 'boing boing' doesn't sound like any yo-yo we used to play with.
It sounds more like they've been abusing Tigger. And secondly, as a description, it's downright confusing. For example whilst the first few games of the season were undoubtedly 'boing', more recently things have been more 'boing' for Di Matteo's men. Yeah, it doesn't make much sense to use either, but whichever 'boing' it refers to, they're undoubtedly on a downward trajectory at the moment.
A run of five games without a win has seen them move closer to 'centimetres about the jaws of relegation' position we expect of them and it's a less buoyant version of the Baggies that will be making the trip to Merseyside this weekend. As a certain dapper Italian manager probably realises, it doesn't take long to go from the height of fashion to being football's equivalent of the Reebok Pump. That second reference to an out-dated fad of the piece was our way of explaining how quickly the situation can turn. A couple of weeks ago he was being lauded for having the bravery to actually try and play football with a team of relegation candidates, but now he's being lampooned for being more naïve than a working class schoolchild hoping to go to university under a Tory government.
In fairness, mocking the Baggies for their current form is like Lord Alan Sugar mocking Chris Moyles for being overly smug. Recent results haven't been all Everton would have hoped for, but beyond the Russell Brand slim haul of points, performances haven't been bad. 'Prove it, faceless corporation guy' you might be thinking and in anticipation of your scepticism, we would point many positives. A draw away to Blackpool doesn't sound great, but given their Jekyll and Hyde performances, the Toffees may just have had the misfortune of catching the Tangerines on a Hyde night - or whichever of Jekyll or Hyde was the good one [God - it's like the bloody 'boing v boing' dilemma all over again]. Following up with a draw at home to Bolton wouldn't have delighted too many Toffees, but lo and behold it turns out the Trotters may actually be a decent side as their subsequent results proved. Everton created enough chances to win on that occasion and as pretty as Beckford's goal was, the performance merited all three points. It was a similar story against Arsenal as the hosts forged out plenty of good chances, but ended up losing narrowly and a draw away to in form Sunderland isn't so bad.
So it's with that sense of inflated ego that we look ahead to the game with West Brom. So convincing was our assessment of Everton's positives that no doubt you are deciding whether to plump for the Everton to win 8-0 option at 500/1 or the 9-0 option at 500/1. Well, without wanting to deflate that fervour, we would encourage you to look at more realistic options such as the Everton 2-0 win @ 13/2 or Everton 3-0 @ 11/1. If actually naming a score requires a level of decision making you're not comfortable with, then we've got Winning Margin betting. Taking Everton to win by 2 goals @ 7/2 covers literally infinite options. Granted most of that infinite are highly unlikely options like the 15,321 - 15,319 scoreline, but equally it covers more realistic options like 2-0, 3-1, 4-2 - all of which sound reasonably plausible.
And now to look at the goalscorer betting. It's hard to look beyond Tim Cahill and not just because his stunning beauty is constantly distracts us from gazing past him. He's bagged 3 goals in his last 4 games and could prosper from a Baggies defence low on confidence. He's 5/1 to be 1st Goalscorer and 8/1 to score two or more goals. For those of us who like both the individual and team performance, then the Wincast option of Everton to win and Cahill to score @ 11/5 looks pretty appealing.
Certainly more appealing than an invitation to Richard Gere's house.
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