Sam Allardyce says Everton's home form must continue
Thursday 8 February 2018 18:00, UK
Sam Allardyce insists if Everton want to finish in the top half of the Premier League this season they must maintain their home form, starting against his former club Crystal Palace on Saturday.
Everton, who are 10th, have only lost one of their last six games at Goodison Park, but are without a win in their last six games away from home.
The Toffees suffered a 5-1 defeat to Arsenal in their last league game and Allardyce wants to make sure they put that behind them and focus on strengthening their home run.
"Our home form is very good," said Allardyce. "Our home form is our best way of staying in the top half if we can and first of all avoiding the threat of relegation.
"Our home form has to be continued with Crystal Palace on Saturday like it was against Leicester. So, when you are looking at our away results, they are not so good. But our home form is pretty good at this point in time.
"We want to repeat that if we can against my old club Crystal Palace."
Allardyce also confirmed that the injury situation is the best since he replaced Ronald Koeman as manager.
Leighton Baines is expected to be clear of his injuries for Everton's match against Watford on February 24 while Maarten Stekelenburg is close to joining in training again, according to Allardyce.
Allardyce added: "It is a great turnaround from Roy [Hodgson] and the lads, but it was always in the players and Roy has managed to bring it out of them.
"It is more or less the same players that I had. I think it is only [Timothy] Fosu-Mensah that is playing in the team at the moment who is there when I was not there.
"But really, at Goodison, it is about us. It is about us playing to our best. It is about us playing like we did against Leicester and trying to win the game."
