Everton vs Luton Town Odds
| Everton Odds | -175 |
| Luton Town Odds | +550 |
| Draw | +280 |
| Over / Under | 2.5 +100 / -125 |
Everton look to make it back to back wins when they host Luton Town at Goodison Park.
The Toffees got their best result of the season last week, going on the road and beating Brentford 3-1. Everton have always been considered a mid-table club in terms of talent, but they just haven't put the results together. Now, under Sean Dyche, the underlying metrics are starting to improve and the market is agreeing by making them a pretty sizable favorite in this match.
Luton Town got their first point of the Premier League season with their 1-1 draw at home against Wolves. It's pretty clear that the Hatters are the worst team in the Premier League, but Rob Edwards has instilled belief into this squad where they've played their last three opponents pretty evenly, so don't be surprised to see them go on the road and get a result.
Here is my Everton vs Luton Town pick.
Everton
Everton are starting to build something after a dreadful start to the season. The performance away to Brentford was one of the best of the season because of what they did out of possession.
They didn’t all out press like they usually would do, but instead sat off quite a bit and then used pressing triggers to set traps and eventually win the ball off of Brentford to create a transition opportunity.
DOMINIC CALVERT-LEWIN GOAL. DID NOT KNOW JAMES GARNER'S MIDDLE NAME WAS INIESTA. pic.twitter.com/2hFJoNsMqF
— Men in Blazers (@MenInBlazers) September 23, 2023
The thing with Everton is these matches against teams around them in the table or essentially against teams where they will be aggressive and press high, they have been awesome offensively creating 8.4 xG. In fact, for the season, Everton have created the second-most big scoring chances in the Premier League.
While all of that is great, the Everton defense hasn’t been great. They have limited big scoring chances, but as is the case with Everton, they have been poor in transition defense for a long time now, which is not good against a primarily transition team in Luton Town.
Everton have also been very poor defending in wide areas. They’ve allowed the fourth-most crosses to be completed in their penalty area, which is how Luton Town create most of their chances.
Luton Town
Luton Town had a bad start to the season , but their first two matches were against Brighton and Chelsea. Against West Ham, Fulham and Wolves they created over 1 xG.
The Hatters don’t do many things well offensively, but it’s very clear that they want to get the ball wide and send in a ton of crosses, which has been successful because they have completed the second-most crosses per 90 minutes in the Premier League this season. This is why the signing of Ryan Giles from Wolves was so important, to give them someone who can play the wingback role in their 3-5-2 to get forward to deliver those crosses into the box.
The flip side is their defense hasn’t been great. They are allowing far too much space in the middle of the pitch. Teams are able to build through the center fairly easily and their pressing that was so good in the Championship just hasn’t been there here in the Premier League.
Everton vs Luton Town
Pick & Prediction
This match is all about game state for me. What both of these teams want to do is press high to try and force high turnovers, which eventually leads to a high quality chance. Luton Town have been playing very passive because they know they'll get exposed if they try to press high, while Everton have been deploying their high press against teams like Luton Town.
Once that first goal goes in, whoever is behind is going to start pressing more aggressively, which is going to create a ton of space for transition opportunities going forward or they'll force high turnovers and create high quality chances themselves.
So, I think both teams to score at +104 is a tad short for two defenses that are in the bottom half of the league in xG allowed.
