Everton vs West Ham United. Premier League.
Goodison ParkAttendance39,574.
Sunday 30 October 2016 13:30, UK
Everton will be without Leighton Baines and James McCarthy when West Ham visit Goodison Park on Super Sunday, live on Sky Sports 1 HD.
Baines has not been involved for five games due to a hamstring problem, while midfielder McCarthy, who sat out last Saturday's 2-1 loss to Burnley, has recently developed a similar issue.
Ronald Koeman's side are on a five-game winless run, most recently suffering a last-minute defeat to the Clarets at Turf Moor.
Meanwhile, West Ham are enjoying their best spell of the season. They recorded back-to-back Premier League wins over Crystal Palace and Sunderland before knocking Chelsea out of the EFL Cup on Wednesday.
And Hammers manager Slaven Bilic has pinned their recent upturn in form on his players' efforts, rather than any change in formation.
"We changed the system a bit," Bilic said. "OK, it's important, especially when the results come, but it's more about the players' movement.
"Cheikhou Kouyate helped to stabilise the defence and also helps us to create from the back."
Team news
Baines and McCarthy miss out through injury for Everton, while forward Enner Valencia, who is on loan from West Ham, is ineligible against his parent club.
For the Hammers, Bilic must decide whether Andre Ayew is fit enough to start after the £20.5m summer signing from Swansea made his comeback as a substitute against Chelsea in midweek.
He has recovered from the thigh injury he sustained on the opening day of the season but may not be able to play a full 90 minutes.
Arthur Masuaku, Sam Byram, Gokhan Tore, Andy Carroll and Diafra Sakho are still out through injury.
Opta stats
Everton's defeat to West Ham in March ended a run of 15 top-flight games without defeat against them (W10 D5).
West Ham haven't won back-to-back league games against Everton since March 1973.
Romelu Lukaku has found the net eight times in 10 games against West Ham in all competitions, his favourite opponent since moving to the Premier League.
Lukaku has scored in his last six Premier League games against West Ham. Only two players have scored in seven successive PL games v the same opponent (Hasselbaink v West Ham 7 and Robin van Persie v Stoke 8).
Dimitri Payet has created more chances in the Premier League this season than any other player (30), while no one has provided more assists than the Frenchman (4).
West Ham last won three Premier League games in a row in March, the third of which came against the Toffees.
The Hammers' last Premier League clean sheet against Everton came in April 2007, a run of 16 games without one against them.
Merson's prediction
The turning point for Everton was the Norwich defeat. They're not going down, they're not challenging for the title and they're not in Europe so a cup run would have been ideal.
But the way Koeman treated that game was worrying and they haven't won since.
West Ham have had three big results in a row and this game looks more difficult than it did a few weeks ago, but Lukaku loves a goal against the Hammers and I think he nets again.
PAUL PREDICTS: 2-0 (Sky Bet odds 8/1)
Betting
Sky Bet make Everton the odds-on favourites at 3/4 to beat West Ham in Super Sunday's opening game. The Hammers are 100/30 outsiders with Sky Bet to secure the three points and the draw is on offer at 14/5.
Bilic's West Ham are out to claim their third 1-0 win in a row and Sky Bet go 12/1 that the visitors claim victory by that scoreline. Winston Reid scored a last-gasp winner against Sunderland last weekend but the centre-half is all the way out at 40/1 in Sky Bet's first goalscorer odds for this meeting.
Everton striker Lukaku is the 100/30 favourite to open the scoring and his Toffees team-mate Arouna Kone can be supported at 11/2.
