At Everton, Jack, Jadon, Harvey and match facts from the BBC

I know it's not Goodison Park but I think it's going to be a while before I start thinking of Everton playing anywhere else even though what they have now is very different and quite impressive. And who is Hill Dickinson?

This is a little interesting. It's not a former player, it's a commercial law firm founded in 1810 and according to something I just read, Everton are getting £10mn a season while the company has a revenue of £145mn a year. If ever I need legal help for work, I think I might call Hill Dickinson if they can manage that.

Anyway, this isn't about sponsored stadiums, although it does make me want to raise the question around would you be okay with Villa Park getting names the Sony Stadium or Red Bull Arena for that money? I think I would. But this is a match day post, so I'll move on.

Everton have six points after three matches and while I don't remember if I've watched an Everton match this season it appears our Jack is having a real impact. I've written it that way on purpose and I'm just playing, but it's nice to see Jack having the freedom to make this impact. There is no doubt he's a special player, I just wish he would have had more shots.

And I think he could have worked for us this season, but it wasn't to be. Instead, we can hope to see Harvey Elliott on the right and Jadon Sancho on the left this weekend and I think these two offer us something we've been lacking so far this season. And I think for a team to be a threat in this League you need to have options down both sides. 

I think we have it now. I think it may take a little time for it to gel and you never know how long it will take, but it will under Unai. I think what we'd all like to see this weekend is a little effort and purpose and team looking for goals. I know it's easy to write, but you all know what I mean.

And I'm so happy that proper football is back. And in other news, did you see that Chelsea have been hit with charges. Do you think they'll be punished before or after Manchester City and before I go, a prediction; 2 VAR errors this weekend. When will this get canned?

Match facts from the BBC

• Everton are winless in their last 12 Premier League matches against Aston Villa, all since Villa returned to the competition in 2019-20 (D3 L9). Their last win was in March 2016, a 3-1 win at Villa Park.

• Aston Villa have won four of their last five away Premier League visits to Everton (D1), keeping a clean sheet in each of their last four. It is Villa’s longest ever run of away league clean sheets against a single opponent.

• Everton have failed to score in their last four home Premier League games against Aston Villa, with Dominic Calvert-Lewin the last Toffees player to score against Villa on home soil. The only time they’ve gone five without a home league goal against an opponent was six in a row against Liverpool between 1973 and 1978.

• Everton have won five of their last six Premier League games (L1), as many as their previous 21 beforehand (W5 D10 L6). At home, the Toffees are looking to win 3+ successive league games for the first time since May 2024 (5).

• For just the second time in the club’s history, Aston Villa have failed to score in their first three league games of a season, also doing so in 1997-98 (first 3). Only four teams have failed to score in their first four Premier League games of a season: Sheffield Wednesday in 1993-94, Newcastle in 2005-06, Swansea in 2011-12 (all 4) and Crystal Palace in 2017-18 (7).

• Everton won their first Premier League match at the Hill Dickinson Stadium on MD2, in a 2-0 win over Brighton. Two teams have won their first two matches at their second permanent home stadium in the competition – Derby at Pride Park in 1997 and Spurs at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in 2019.

• Since the start of May, no side has won more Premier League points than Everton (16 – W5 D1 L1), and only Liverpool (14) have scored more goals than the Toffees (13).

• Harvey Elliott could make his Aston Villa debut in this match – he was involved in seven goals in his last seven Premier League starts for former side Liverpool (2 goals, 5 assists), assisting in five of those seven starts. The last player to assist on his Premier League debut for Villa was Leon Bailey in August 2021.

• Jack Grealish has assisted two goals in both of his last two Premier League appearances – the first ever Everton player to achieve this, and as many times as he had recorded more than one assist in his first 191 appearances in the competition beforehand. No player in Premier League history has ever assisted 2+ goals in three successive matches.

• No Englishman has created more chances in the Premier League this season than Everton’s Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall (8) – he has already played more league minutes for the Toffees (270) than he did for Chelsea in the 2024-25 campaign (259).