It is not often when Everton prove me wrong that it is met with joy! Usually because I am little miss positive where my beloved blues are concerned but on this occasion I was dubious with our normal form for playing relegation destined teams. But thankfully on this occasion it was not to be, although we did gift them one goal but I won't go on about that!
I saw many of our fans felt we didn't play particularly well on Tuesday night but as Martinez said Aston Villa had a lot of fight. As they normally do when they play Everton! Teams at that end of the table will play with a different type of passion and one that thankfully our 'confidence' was able to overcome. You do have to wonder how games like that change the way we play, a goal from a corner, never one of our strongest points. It does always make me wonder why we get so pumped up about winning a corner when we usually don't do anything with it! And then an assist from man of the match Mirallas, his first according to BBC Sport in 454 days. Could it be the effect of the positive news we have had at the club, or just that as many have said Aston Villa were particularly poor? I am not sure we are giving the boys the credit they then deserve if we were to go with the latter. There is no question that the third of our goal scorers was acting any differently in this game than any other this season with his 17th Premier League goal of the term!
So a needed win under our belts and we are back to it once more on Saturday but this time back home. After a game that saw us take our away record to eight successive games without defeat we return home where the form isn't quite so good with 50% of the games in the last eight being defeats. One of those granted was against top of the table Leicester but of the others they came from West Brom (13th), Swansea (16th) and Stoke before that who sit above us at the seventh place. Interestingly though our upcoming competitor seems to have the opposite results in terms of home and away with their away record lacking very much in comparison to that of their home one.
The home record is so points rich they have not lost since August and have only seen two defeats at home this entire season compared to our six defeats at home. Like us it's the draws that seem to be the source of pain for a West Ham side sat in sixth place currently in the Premier League table, with a total of ten draws compared to our eleven, albeit more evenly split across their home and away games 50/50. They have not won on the road since the 12th of January when they beat Bournemouth 3-1. Drawing one and losing two of the three games they have played away since.
Could it be a good season to play West Ham at home then? Or could we both play to our usual downfall and end up with a draw. I think that's where my money would be going if I was a betting girl! Sadly I am not otherwise my prediction of Man City winning on Sunday could have been even more of a bonus than just them lot being beat!
