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Everton vs Blackburn Rovers

Match Preview

With any momentum gained from the New Year's Day victory at West Bromwich Albion having dissipated following back-to-back defeats to Bolton and Spurs and last week's draw at Aston Villa, Everton are back on home turf for the first of three consecutive home games.

An FA Cup tie with Fulham followed by the visit of Manchester City loom in the next fortnight but first unpredictable Blackburn Rovers come to Goodison Park in optimistic mood after moving out of the bottom three last weekend.

In the last month, Steve Kean's side have held Liverpool to a draw at Anfield and beaten Manchester United at Old Trafford so they could prove to be a tricky proposition for an Everton side that is still trying to find a measure of consistency and confidence.

In addition to the chronic lack of goals in his team, David Moyes will still have a litany of injuries with which to contend this weekend, and the chance that those with more minor niggles, like Seamus Coleman and Tony Hibbert, would be available after missing the last few games were dashed by the manager in his pre-match press conference.

Even without any improvement of the injury situation, Moyes will still have a few problems naming a strong starting XI. With Darron Gibson's encouraging debut, Moyes at least has a core central midfield around which he can deploy Landon Donovan and, perhaps, Royston Drenthe

And Shane Duffy's accomplished displays over the last two games mean that the loss to injury of Phil Jagielka and Sylvain Distin have not been as keenly felt as first feared. It means that the French defender could take another week to heal his hamstring while Duffy continues alongside John Heitinga.

As ever, it's up front where the problems lie, with the normally so dependable Tim Cahill struggling badly for form no matter where he is played at the moment and Louis Saha able to boast just one league goal all season.

Victor Anichebe's scoring return to action — he has two already so far in 2012 — means that he could well get a starting role this weekend, but it remains to be seen if Apostolos Vellios's hat-trick for the Reserves has moved him up the pecking order at all.

Blackburn, who have lost all but one of the last five meetings with the Blues, will have to do without their top scorer Yakubu who begins a three-match suspension after being sent off against Fulham last weekend. They did manage to score all three of their goals against Fulham last weekend without him, though, so it's going to be important that Everton keep things tight at the back.

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