Everton’s Silva Lining

Everton finally got their man: Marco Silva. Despite a huge pay-out offered to Watford during the 2017/2018 season, The Hornets resisted. As is to be expected of Watford’s temporary-natured managerial policy, a bad run of results left the Portuguese out of a job and Everton appointed Marco Silva as manager, following the sacking of the laborious Sam Allardyce.

Attacking options

Sam Allardyce teams have not boasted many attacking FPL assets over the years, but with Marco Silva at the Goodison helm certain players may thrive (especially given Everton’s exemplary run of opening fixtures).

Towards the end of last season, Cenk Tosun (7.0) looked good for goal threat, even under Sam Allardyce so he could well benefit from Marco Silva’s attacking football, as the Turk is set to be the focal point of the Toffees’ attack.

Another interesting attacker to monitor is Ademola Lookman (5.5), who this season is listed as a midfielder, and seems to be highly regarded by Silva. The youngster was on loan at Bundesliga outfit Red Bull Leipzig towards the end of last season, and scored five goals in eleven games, whilst also assisting his teammates three times throughout his spell in Germany.

RB Leipzig manager, Ralf Ragnick, has recently had a permanent bid for the 20-year-old rejected by Everton with Marco Silva stating: “The most important thing is Lookman is our player, he is an Everton player and I want Lookman to stay in our squad.”

If Silva can get similar performances out of Lookman, as he did with fellow winger Richarlison (6.5) at his spell at Vicarage Road, then FPL managers could well be rushing to fit the cut-price wide-man in their squads.

However, with Richarlison joining Marco Silva at Goodison Park in a £50M move, Lookman’s starting place is certainly in danger. If one of the two nail down the left-wing position, they have the potential to be great FPL assets with appealing 5.5 and 6.5 price tags.

I think these two young wingers spearheading the Blues’ attack have much more going forward than Yannick Bolasie (6.0) or Theo Walcott (6.5), the other two wide options for Everton, although Walcott looks to have the edge here over Lookman.

Defensive options

At the other end of the pitch, Everton could offer significant value in defence. Marco Silva’s sides have been renowned for attacking full-backs previously, with the likes of Kiko Femenia and Marvin Zeegelaar in his Watford side.

With better full-backs in Leighton Baines (5.5) and Seamus Coleman (5.5), these two could offer attacking returns throughout the season as well as potential clean sheets with Everton’s appealing opening fixtures.

The Coleman/Baines debate is one which has been puzzling FPL managers for some time – I have always sided with Baines due to his added ability to take the majority of Everton’s set pieces and his previous penalty duties. Coleman, however, offers much more goal threat in open-play and will be more guaranteed to start due to Everton’s rumoured pursuit of a left back. They have been rumoured to be looking at Celtic’s highly-rated left-back Kieran Tierney and Lucas Digne.

With Baines’ place in the side potentially at threat, set pieces could then be presumably shared between Cenk Tosun (7.0) on penalties and Gylfi Sigurðsson (7.5) on free kicks, making the Icelandic man a sought after midfield option, as well as adding another string to Tosun’s bow as an FPL asset. Tosun could be in line for penalties even if Baines is starting.

Elsewhere in defence, the cheapest nailed on starting defender looks likely to be Michael Keane (5.0), or of course World Cup hero Jordan Pickford in goal (5.0). This leaves a second centre-back spot in Everton’s back four, open to guesswork (barring any transfers).

With Phil Jagielka and Ashley Williams struggling last season, it would be interesting to see Mason Holgate given a chance at centre-back. Although this debate is up in the air, all three of the aforementioned possible starting centre-backs are priced at 4.5, meaning a cheap way into the Everton back line could be taken advantage of during their seemingly easy run of fixtures, once it is made clear who will secure the starting position.

On the other hand, the second centre-back spot could be handed to a potential newcomer, with Barcelona’s Yerry Mina being touted as another possible Marco Silva signing, amid competition from other clubs. If there is no new CB signing, this spot is one to watch as we could be handed a nice enabler in many FPL teams.

Predicted lineup

So far with no transfers confirmed my predicted line-up is (4-2-3-1):

Pickford

Coleman Holgate/Jagielka/Williams Keane Baines

Schneiderlin/Davies Gueye

Walcott Sigurdsson Richarlison

Tosun

With Richarlison now signing, Lookman will likely start on the bench. The squad is beginning to look fairly settled, with CB and LB being looked at for new signings. CM isn’t yet decided, but that will likely not impact FPL managers too much.

In conclusion

There look to be good options throughout the Everton side this year and, with fixtures falling nicely, going for one or two Everton players could pay off nicely. Priced below premium, they will be competing for second or third forward spots, and third or fourth midfield spots. Interestingly, the highest owned player is Pickford at 21.6%, and the second is Tosun at 11.2%. With Richarlison at 7.1%, there is then a big drop to Coleman at 4.0% and the rest are much lower. Not only then are Everton potentially very good FPL options, for now they also look like differentials.