Match Preview: Manchester Utd vs Everton

Everton approach the final game of the Premier League Summer Series in Atalanta ion Sunday night, hoping to prevent Manchester Utd winning the trophy.

With wins already over West Ham Utd and Bournemouth, the Old Trafford side appear to have recovered their pride and swagger after the ultimate embarrassment of finishing the last Premier League season two places and 6 points below Everton, and are well set to claim the Premier League Summer Series trophy unless the Blues can pull off a huge surprise victory. 

It's a tall order for David Moyes and his small retinue of goal-shy strugglers as they seek to improve fitness and cohesion with the start of the new Premier League season now less than 2 weeks away. They cannot win the trophy after losing to both West Ham Utd and Bournemouth, and would need a miracle to avoid finishing last in this dubious pre-season branding exercise.

At least James Tarkowski has made an appearance, suggesting that he is well on the way toward a full recovery from hamstring surgery at the end of last season, which can only be good news for a team that is severely limited in terms of leadership on the field. 

Theirno Barry, the star signing of the close season so far for Everton, struggled to make much of an impression in his only showing so far on Wednesday night, but Beto has been his usual enigmatic self, so David Moyes could throw the big Frenchman in from the start tomorrow night.

The question of meaningful support for the striker going forward still remains a challenging one, despite the tantalising skills of Iliman Ndiaye and the latent Latino charisma of Charly Alcaraz — neither of whom have produced anything in terms of end product on this tour so far.

The only player to have created anything meaningful is young Academy protégé, Harrison Armstrong, who drove forward with determination and a mature calmness to play in Idrissa Gana Gueye for the only goal of the tournament that the Blues have managed to score. But sadly the youngster faded into anonymity for the rest of the game in Chicago, and may not have given David Moyes sufficient grounds for another starting place.   

Jordan Pickford seems certain to return in goal after Mark Travers's blunder when attempting to punch away a lofted cross that landed conveniently for Paqueta to plunder an equalizer on Wednesday as the Hammers went on to win with a goal that had both Travers and Everton's right-sided defenders looking sheepish. That was a pity as Travers had pulled off a few creditable shot-stopper saves.  

But former Manchester United and Everton goalkeeper Tim Howard seems to have the inside track on what could be the deciding factor on Sunday night:

“Fans like winning and, if you want someone who’s a winner, David Moyes can line his team up to get a result as that comes down to adaptability and he has that.” 

Kick-off at the Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta, Georgia, is on Sunday 3 August at 5:00 pm EDT (10:00 pm BST), with live coverage from the NBC Peacock team broadcast on Sky TV in the UK.  

 

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