{"id":12449,"date":"2025-12-19T18:37:54","date_gmt":"2025-12-19T18:37:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/?p=12449"},"modified":"2025-12-20T22:58:48","modified_gmt":"2025-12-20T22:58:48","slug":"reset-and-recharged-at-the-hill-dickinson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/?p=12449","title":{"rendered":"Reset and Recharged at the Hill Dickinson"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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And so to Bramley-Moore Dock for a first visit to the Hill Dickinson Stadium, the new Merseyside home of Everton, for Saturday night\u2019s league fixture. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The eponymous Thomas Bramley-Moore was a politician and merchant who made his early money in Brazil off the back of the early-19th-century slave trade when he was simply Thomas Moore. He assumed the Bramley and the hyphen six years after returning to Britain in 1835, and one year before becoming chairman of Liverpool’s dock board. He oversaw the expansion of Liverpool’s northern docks, which led to one being named after him. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Goodison Park, Everton’s home since 1892, is now history, too, at least for men’s senior football. Everton’s women’s team now plays there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The links between the club and Hill Dickinson, a Liverpool law firm dating back to 1810, long predate the stadium naming rights deal. One predecessor firm was Cuff Roberts, with Cuff being Will Cuff, who was Everton’s secretary (what would now be called its manager) at the time of our first visit to Goodison in April 1905. He went on to become the club\u2019s chairman between the First and Second World Wars. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cuff was elected president of the Football League in 1938, a position he held until he died in 1949. One of his first actions was to require all players to wear numbered shirts. Our club was a pioneer in this regard, having first worn them \u2014 black numbers in a white square sewn onto the back of the jerseys \u2014 in a match against Sheffield Wednesday at Hillsborough ten years earlier.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Hill Dickinson has a capacity of 52,888 seats, making it the eighth-largest football stadium in England and the 11th-largest in Britain. Like many contemporary sports venues, it is designed to be the focal point of an urban regeneration scheme.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is a drone fly-through video at the end of this preview for those unable to attend the game, which also marks the first anniversary of AS Roma\u2019s US owners, the Friedkin Group, adding Everton to their portfolio.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Moyes<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

David Moyes’s return in January after more than a decade away, during which his managerial career looked as adrift as the club he was returning to, has, however, brought a degree of desperately needed stability to both club and career.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After replacing Sean Dyche last season, Moyes got a team that had needed Houdini-like powers to escape relegation in recent seasons to a 13th-placed finish. In the summer, he overhauled his squad, if nothing else, to reduce the age of what is still the joint-oldest squad in the league. Ten of the 27 players who made first-team appearances last season are gone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Along with nine new players, Moyes has replaced Dyche’s pragmatic, old-school 4-4-2 football with more controlled, possession-based play in the modern manner. He still wants a compact defence that is difficult for opponents to play through; Everton’s 4-2-3-1 collapses into a 5-2-3 when the opposition has the ball. Yet, despite Jordan Pickford’s eye for a long raking clearance to spring a counterattack, Moyes’s Everton no longer invariably goes long as did Dyche\u2019s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The opposition<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pickford falls into the same set of irrationally irritating people as Chelsea’s Cucarella, but England\u2019s No. 1 keeper is a big reason that Everton has not conceded as many goals as the stats suggest they should.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In front of him, there should be the two big men in the centre of the defence, James Tarkowski and the much courted 23-year-old Jarrad Branthwaite. However, Branthwaite has a thigh injury that will sideline him until the New Year.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The veteran Michael Keane will likely fill in. I say veteran, although at 32, he is a year younger than fellow ex-Burnley man Tarkowski. Both were good enough to be on the fringes of the England team when they were younger men.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Left-back Vitaliy Mykolenko is an established Ukraine international with 51 caps. Club captain S\u00e9amus Coleman is also gone in the fetlock, so Ireland international Jake O’Brien is likely to start at right back.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Africa Cup of Nations will deprive Moyes of two key midfielders, Idrissa Gueye, who anchors the double pivot, and Iliman Ndiaye, who has been a revelation since switching wings to accommodate Jack Grealish, on loan from Manchester City, on the left. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Moyes has also lost Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall, a \u00a325 million summer signing from Chelsea and joint top scorer with Ndiaye, to a hamstring injury sustained last weekend, while Merlin Rohl, an attacking midfielder who joined on a season-long loan from Freiburg in the summer, has been out for several weeks. Grealish, who is also nursing a dodgy hammy, is 50\/50 to be fit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That will probably mean Moyes lines up young Brummie Tim Iroegbunam alongside Birkenhead-born James Garner, who is one yellow card away from suspension, in the engine room in front of the back four, but will struggle to assemble an attacking midfield ahead of them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Options include the teenage Tyler Dibling, who was bought from Southampton for \u00a335 million plus add-ons in the summer, for the right wing, another Burnley retread, Dwight McNeil, on the left, and Carlos Alcaraz, a 23-year-old Argentine who joined from Brazilian club Flamengo in the summer, in the centre. Dibling, Alcaraz, and McNeil would form a respectable PL midfield, but it is a level below Ndiaye, Dewsbury-Hall, and Grealish, and at least two levels below \u00d8degaard, Zubimendi, and Rice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

France youth international Thierno Barry, a \u00a335 million summer signing from Villarreal, will likely start up front. Portuguese-born Guinea-Bissau international Beto will offer fresh legs later in the match. Moyes prefers a centre-forward who is tall and strong, can run tirelessly, and is willing to be physical. Both strikers meet those criteria.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, both have managed only a single league goal each this season, typifying the team’s struggle to score.  Only Notts Forest and Wolves have scored fewer than Everton’s 18 league goals this season. That stands in stark contrast to a defence that is the seventh meanest. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In losing 2-0 at Stamford Bridge last weekend, Everton struggled to create chances, and Chelsea cut through their defence more often than Moyes would have liked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Arsenal<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

After last weekend’s reversion to the late-era Wenger horseshoe of ennui against Wolves, the hope must be that the unaccustomed luxury of late of a week without a game \u2014 and two full days off for the players \u2014 has recharged minds and bodies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, Benny Blanco has now been added to the broken bodies list, comprising Kai Havertz, Gabriel, Cristhian Mosquera and Max Dowman. On the plus side, Riccardo Calafiori returns from suspension.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We\u2019ve won only once away to Everton since 2017, and this will be a challenging game. Arteta will select his strongest available XI. The main uncertainties are whether Gy\u00f6keres, Merino or Jes\u00fas starts up front, and who among Eze, Martinelli, Madueke and Trossard will be playing on their left. I hazard:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Raya<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Timber, Saliba, Hincapi\u00e9, Calafiori<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00d8degaard, Zubimendi, Rice<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Saka, Gy\u00f6keres, Eze<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We can’t say that the Hill-Dickinson is always a tough place to go, as we haven’t been there before. Nor will there be an emotional return for Arteta, on the sixth anniversary of his appointment as our manager, to the pitch where he played for Moyes from 2005 to 2011. (Moyes says he remembers Arteta as a great player but a moaner.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If anything, Everton have yet to turn their new home into a fortress, winning only four of their eight home matches so far, drawing two and losing two. However, Everton\u2019s ultras, the 1878s group, will stage a tifo spectacular ahead of kick-off to raz up the atmosphere, with everyone in the 15,000-seat South Stand taking part in the display.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Must win, again<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

After a frenetic run of seven games in 21 days that left us looking heavy-legged, I trust a week of rest and recovery will have recharged us, ready for the frenetic run of seven games in 22 days across the festive season. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

With City at home to West Ham earlier in the day, we could be off the top by the time we kick off, so this game becomes yet another must-win. Yet, we should have enough to win and return to the top, especially as Everton will be missing some of their most potent threats. 2-0 to the good guys.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Enjoy the game, ‘holics, near and far.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fly through the Hill Dickinson here<\/a> – don’t forget to pick up three points!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

And so to Bramley-Moore Dock for a first visit to the Hill Dickinson Stadium, the new Merseyside home of Everton, for Saturday night\u2019s league fixture.  The eponymous Thomas Bramley-Moore was a politician and merchant who made his early money in Brazil off the back of the early-19th-century slave trade when he was simply Thomas Moore. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12449"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12449"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12449\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12457,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12449\/revisions\/12457"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12449"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12449"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12449"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}