By OkayGoal
Preston North End vs Everton in the Carabao Cup second round is not the draw anybody at Goodison wanted.
A Championship side away from home in the opening week of the Premier League season is a genuinely awkward assignment, and how David Moyes handles his team selection at Deepdale will tell us plenty about how seriously Everton are taking this competition.
Everton arrive with momentum after Saturday’s 2-0 win over Crystal Palace, and there is a difficult trip to Bournemouth waiting at the weekend. That sandwich is exactly what makes this such a tricky one to call.
Preston vs Everton kickoff
Venue: Deepdale, Preston
Competition: Carabao Cup second round
Round: Second round
Preston vs Everton team news
Everton team news:
Christian Nørgaard remains unavailable, and James Garner is still building fitness after his own injury layoff. Moyes admitted after the Palace game that Garner was only involved in that squad out of necessity and that he would not have been included had there been other options, so a start here looks unlikely. Half an hour off the bench is the sensible use of him.
Jarrad Branthwaite is the clearest candidate to be rested from a long-term management perspective. Tyler Dibling should come in after being left out entirely against Palace despite a full pre-season behind him. Brennan Johnson is a different case, having missed pre-season altogether, so any minutes he gets are about building him up rather than rewarding form.
Jake O’Brien’s situation adds a wrinkle, with reports suggesting he wants to leave if regular football is not guaranteed. Nathan Patterson and Adam Aznou both come into the conversation in the full-back areas, though changing too much of the back four at once is usually where these nights unravel.
Preston North End team news:
Paul Heckingbottom is expected to rotate heavily as well, as he did in the first round. Preston have not had the smoothest start to their own season, losing to Bolton on the opening day and to Wolves last week, though they did come through against Huddersfield on penalties to reach this stage.
Preston vs Everton pre-match tactical analysis
The Wolves tie from last season is the obvious reference point hanging over this one. Everton made wholesale changes, looked completely disjointed, and went out. The theory that a squad of Premier League footballers should cope with eight or nine changes falls apart the moment you watch a group who have never played together try to function as a team. It happened at Wolves, and it happened at Goodison against Norwich under Ronald Koeman years before that.
The counter-argument is real, though. Players outside the XI need minutes, fitness needs building, and a manager only learns to trust a squad player by actually playing him. Three or four changes looks like the sensible middle ground, enough to freshen things without dismantling the shape that beat Palace.
Preston, for their part, will treat this as a free hit. The league is their priority and nobody at Deepdale is judging their season on a cup tie against Premier League opposition. But beating Everton would still mean plenty in the north west and would give their supporters a genuine lift, so this is not a fixture Everton can approach assuming the division gap decides it for them.
Preston vs Everton key players
Tyler Dibling
This is the night he needs. A full pre-season behind him, zero minutes against Palace, and a young attacker whose confidence is worth protecting. Leaving him out again would be genuinely difficult to justify.
Preston vs Everton predicted lineup
Everton predicted lineup (4-3-3): Mark Travers, Nathan Patterson, James Tarkowski, Jarrad Branthwaite, Vitalii Mykolenko, Hayden Hackney, Harrison Armstrong, Tyler Dibling, Charly Alcaraz, Tyrique George, Beto
Why this Preston vs Everton tie matters more than the manager suggested
Moyes was noticeably lukewarm when asked about the importance of winning a trophy in his pre-match press conference, which made for an awkward exchange. The frustration from supporters is understandable because this competition has been genuinely bleak for Everton in living memory (one final which was four decades ago).
And the route matters now more than it used to. Win this and you are into Europe, and once you are in Europe the door to bigger things starts opening. Crystal Palace, Chelsea, West Ham and Aston Villa have all shown exactly how that works in recent seasons.
For a club still building the foundations of a squad capable of competing on multiple fronts, it is arguably the most realistic path available.
Preston vs Everton prediction
Everton should have enough here regardless of how both managers shuffle their packs. The quality gap is real and if Moyes resists the temptation to overhaul the entire XI, this should be controlled. Get the job done inside an hour, then start rolling substitutes on and give the players still working back towards full sharpness some useful minutes.
Prediction: Preston North End 0-2 Everton