Sports Blog 01/12/2015: League Cup Quarter-Final Preview – Middlesbrough vs Everton, Tuesday 1st December 2015

The League Cup quarter-finals get underway on Tuesday, with Teeside trip for Everton, who face Middlesbrough at 7.45pm on Sky Sports 1.

A heart-breaking loss to Norwich in the play-off final put an end of Middlesbrough’s hopes of returning to the Premier League last season; however, they have bounced back with aplomb in the Championship and, as a cherry on top, arguably have the best chance out of the remaining non-top flight sides to reach the League Cup semi-finals (sitting at 20/1 to lift the trophy). 11 wins, 3 draws and 4 losses leaves Boro in 2nd in the Championship, 2 points behind the unbeaten Brighton and ahead of Derby County on goals scored. Impressively they have only dropped 5 points at the Riverside Stadium this season, a solitary loss against Bristol City and a drawn against Fulham preventing them from a perfect record at home.

They have been nearly as strong in the League Cup. Entering in the 1st round, Boro opened their account with a 3-1 victory over Oldham, following that up with a stuttering extra time win over Burton Albian in the 2nd round before looking more convincing in the 3rd round, beating Championship rivals Wolves 3-0. Aitor Karanka was then dealt them an unenviable trip to Old Trafford in the 4th round; however, finishing 0-0 after extra time Middlesbrough managed to beat Manchester United in a dire penalty shootout where only 4 out of the 8 spot kicks taken were scored, 3 of which were by Boro. Looking ahead to Tuesday and the potential return of Christian Stuani is a huge boost; on 7 goals in 14 games, Boro’s top scorer sits at a Super Mega PGM spread of 17-21.



Whilst everything’s relative, Everton’s season had been slightly more mixed than Boro’s, a few too many draws leaving the Toffees in 9th. Nevertheless Roberto Martinez’s side ended November unbeaten, scoring 14 goals in 4 league games. 6-2 and 4-0 victories over Sunderland and Aston Villa were undoubtedly the highlights, whilst draws against West Ham and Bournemouth were varying degrees of frustrating. Whilst shared points against Slaven Bilic’s much-improved Hammers is by no means a bad result, last weekend’s 3-3 draw against the Cherries captured some of Everton’s faults this season, throwing first a 2-0, then a 3-2, lead away in the final few minutes. One unmitigated bright spot has been Romelu Lukaku who has 5 goals in his past 4 games (and 12 in 17 all competitions), going into Tuesday at the best Super Mega PGM of 29-35.

The way Everton played against Bournemouth was reminiscent of the near entirety of their League Cup run so far. A 5-3 victory in the 2nd round sounds impressive, until you realise it was against League One’s Barnsley, that Barnsley had thrown away a 2-0 lead AND that it took a Marc Roberts own goal and a 115th minute strike in extra time to give the Toffees the edge. They then managed to beat Reading in normal time 2-1, if only after going behind in the first half, before being pushed to penalties by Norwich in round four. Yet alongside Southampton the Toffees go into Tuesday night as 3rd favourites for the Capital One Cup, sitting a 7/1 compared to Man City’s 8/11 and Liverpool’s 9/2.

Despite the difference in league both teams are in decent form; if anything Boro are doing better at the moment, and their formidable form at the Riverside Stadium is not to be sniffed at. It explains, then, why our Spreadex traders have found the tie just too hard to call, offering a Middlesbrough/Everton Goal Supremacy spread of -0.1-0.1 alongside a Total Goals spread of 2.5-2.7.