🏏 Sat, 19 Sep 2026 15:00 BST
Everton
vs
Ipswich
4-2-3-1 vs 4-2-3-1
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Match Preview
- Ninth plays tenth, and both sides arrive on six points from four matches. Only goal difference separates them — Everton at +2, Ipswich at -3 — and leaders Arsenal sit six points clear on 12. With the middle of the table this compressed, the winner here climbs straight into the chasing pack.
- The six points have been earned in completely different ways. Everton are unbeaten with one win and three draws, and those draws have come in sequence: 1-1 at Bournemouth, 2-2 at home to Manchester United, then a goalless afternoon at Tottenham. Five goals scored and three conceded in four games tells the story of a solid side that cannot finish the job.
- Ipswich, by contrast, have not drawn a single match. They beat Sunderland 2-1 at home on the opening weekend, were taken apart 5-2 away at Manchester United, lost 2-0 at home to Liverpool, and then won 3-2 at Crystal Palace in round four. Ten goals conceded against Everton's three underlines how much they need this to become an open, high-scoring game.
- Both teams line up 4-2-3-1, and the contrast in the double pivots is striking. Everton pair James Garner, the 25-year-old Manchester United academy graduate whose long passing and set-piece delivery set the tempo, with 19-year-old Harrison Armstrong, at the club since he was five and recalled from a loan at Preston. Ipswich counter with experience: Ezequiel Palacios, the 27-year-old Argentina international who won the Bundesliga at Leverkusen and a world title in 2022, alongside Serbia's Saša Lukić, 30, formerly of Torino and Fulham.
- There is a subplot in Everton's attacking three. Jack Grealish, 31, is back at a club he once represented, having gone from Aston Villa to Manchester City in between, and is still working his way back from a broken leg — how much of that foul-drawing dribbling has returned is a question in itself. On the other flank is Brennan Johnson, the Wales international signed from Tottenham for a club-record £35m, whose straight-line pace is exactly the kind of threat that troubles a back line shipping goals.
- Thierno Barry leads the line for Everton: 23 years old, 195cm, quick for his size, and a scorer of 11 La Liga goals at Villarreal before joining in the summer of 2025. Ipswich answer with height of their own in Issa Diop, the 194cm Frenchman who was a Ligue 1 regular at Toulouse as a teenager before West Ham and Fulham, and 189cm Republic of Ireland centre-back Dara O'Shea. Crosses and set pieces should be worth watching.
- Ipswich's front three are all designed to take defenders on. Jack Clarke, 25, came through at Leeds and blossomed at Sunderland after a Tottenham move, cutting in from the left onto his right foot. Julio Enciso, the 173cm Paraguay international, turned professional at 15 with Libertad and shoots from range. On the right is Fatawu Issahaku, 22, a Ghana international by way of Sporting and Leicester. Everton's full-backs, Ukraine international Vitaliy Mykolenko among them, will be busy.
- Daizen Maeda waits on the Ipswich bench. The 28-year-old Japan forward climbed through Matsumoto Yamaga, Mito Hollyhock and Yokohama F. Marinos, where he became J1's top scorer, before nearly five trophy-laden years at Celtic took him to England. At 173cm he is all explosive speed and relentless pressing from the front, and if he arrives against a back line featuring 33-year-old James Tarkowski late on, the game behind Everton's defence changes shape.
- The goalkeeping matchup is a fine one. Jordan Pickford, 32, is England's first choice, quick off his line, sharp with his distribution and vocal to the point of theatre. Christian Walton, 30 and 195cm, is a Brighton academy product who kept goal through Ipswich's climb out of the lower divisions. Behind him sits Kjell Scherpen, at 206cm one of the tallest goalkeepers in European football.
- Both benches carry late-game options. Everton can turn to Tyler Dibling, the 20-year-old signed from Southampton for a club-record fee, Tyrique George, on loan from Chelsea since January 2026 after Grealish's injury, and Hayden Hackney, the 2025-26 Championship player of the year who arrived from Middlesbrough in a deal worth up to £24m. Ipswich have Chuba Akpom, an Arsenal academy graduate and Championship golden boot winner with Middlesbrough, plus Zian Flemming, scorer of 32 Championship goals at Millwall.