Everton v Palace

Goodison Park, Sunday 3.00pm

Iain Dowie

Team news

On-loan centre-half Gonzalo Sorondo (knee) could make a return, otherwise Mark Hudson will take his place in defence.

Danny Butterfield (hernia operation) and DARREN POWELL (thigh) are pushing for starting roles after recovering from injury.

Everton's James McFadden (hamstring), Alessandro Pistone (hamstring) and James Beattie (knee) are all missing.

Palace boss Iain Dowie said: "Hopefully we will still be going up the final furlong at the end of the season.

"David Moyes has done very well and made the point that whatever happens it has been a fantastic season, and it has.

"But David is as competitive as ever and wants that fourth spot. The game will be full of edge on Sunday."

Ref-watch by SpikeyMatt

Referee: Uriah Rennie [Sheffield]

I’m sitting here, stunned, reading my weekly browsing of the Premier League website, which details our referee for our upcoming matches. Not only do we have a referee who’s notorious for letting the game flow as freely as that as tar from a bucket, but his incompetence earlier in the season, not awarding Palace a penalty at White Hart Lane when Sandor Torghelle was hauled down in the area – that could have given us all three points and we may be sitting in 17th spot now if it wasn’t for him!

Oh well, who’s to work on hindsight. Uriah Rennie, a martial arts black-belt don’t you know, from Sheffield will be taking charge on Sunday when the Eagles lock horns with the Toffees from Everton.

Rennie, a well known decongestant tablet, hasn’t been short of controversy this season, he took control of a game between Blackburn and Chelsea which saw him described as “inconsistent”, “shockingly poor”, one fan quipped “Uriah obviously has never heard of 'advantage'” – so on Sunday, to all the Palace faithful going up there – perhaps a whole shed-load of patience is needed to combat this level of, seemingly dire, refereeing.

So, in the 21 painful games that fans have witness Uriah take control of this season, he’s awarded three penalties [make that four on Sunday, AJ, bottom right hand corner], 51 yellow cards and 2 reddies.

Sunday is crunch-time, pivotal, crucial, MASSIVE, the boys need the support in what is a game that may be seen as one that could make or break our season. Stand up and be counted at Goodison on Sunday, red and blue, thick and thin – get behind the lads through the next 6 weeks and the dividends could come out as high as another £25m……

In the immortal words of our wonderful PA man, Rob Fox, BE LOUD, BE PROUD, BE PALACE!

Back to the studio….

Everton - league stats

Position	Played	Won	Drawn	Lost	Points
4th	31	15	6	10	51

Full league table

Everton - current form

Played	Won	Drawn	Lost	For	Against
5	1	0	4	4	6

Full form table

Our away record v Everton

Played	Won	Drawn	Lost	For	Against
12	2	4	6	11	24

Last five results

Date	Type	Home Team	Score	Away Team
21/08/2004	League	Crystal Palace	1 - 3	Everton
12/09/2001	League Cup	Everton	1 - 1	Crystal Palace
10/01/1998	League	Crystal Palace	1 - 3	Everton
09/08/1997	League	Everton	1 - 2	Crystal Palace
21/01/1995	League	Everton	3 - 1	Crystal Palace

All time results

One to watch

Tim Cahill (again)

Everton's top scorer

Tim Cahill - 7 goals

Everton's bad boy

Tim Cahill (again) - 8 1

Palace old boys

Marcus Bent & Nigel Martyn (no, really)

As if him being Australian wasn’t enough to dislike this player; Tim Cahill snubbed Palace last summer in favour of a ‘dream move’ to the Blue half of Merseyside and Goodison Park for a fee believed to be just under £3 million.

Since moving to Everton from Millwall – Cahill has built a firm and strong relationship with Toffee’s fans for his remarkable heading ability for his size, tenacity in the tackle and impressive goal-making and scoring record this season. Tim’s certainly been a catalyst in Everton’s impressive form this season which sees them sit in fourth position, in front of bitter rivals Liverpool.

Playing alongside players at Everton such as Spanish international Mikel Arteta, experience in David Weir and Alan Stubbs and quality forwards such as Marcus Bent and James Beattie has seen Cahill’s game improve as the season has worn on, winning him plaudits from many in the footballing world.

The role in which Cahill plays at Everton, as the attacking of their three central midfielders is one that is key to Everton’s success this season. He links their defensively minded midfield with the lone striker upfront and stopping Cahill is a key way to stop Everton from scoring from open play. He also possesses a danger with his head from set-pieces and this has seen him bag a few goals this season.

A danger in every respect of the words, tackling, heading and shooting – the guys got a huge locker, its just up to Palace to keep the locker slammed shut!

Last meeting

Palace 1-3 Everton

Saturday August 21 2004

Palace: Speroni, Boyce (Kaviedes, 77), Hudson, Popovic, Granville, Routledge, Riihilahti (Derry, 73), Hall, Kolkka, Johnson, Freedman

Subs not used: Hughes, Borrowdale, Kiraly

Booking: Boyce

Goals: Hudson 9

Everton: Martyn, Hibbert, Stubbs, Naysmith (sent off 71), Carsley, Osman (Pistone, 75), Yobo, Gravesen, Kilbane, Campbell (Ferguson, 54), Bent (Watson, 85)

Subs not used: Wright,McFadden

Booking: Naysmith

Goals: Gravesen 19 (pen), Gravesen 62, Bent 82