Everton vs Roma

Goodison Park is the venue as Everton and Roma go head-to-head in a tasty-looking pre-season friendly.

Despite two separate point deductions midway through last season, Everton avoided relegation, finishing 15th in the Premier League to extend the second-longest continuous presence in English top-flight football. However, Sean Dyche’s men have been flirting with the drop in recent years, highlighting the pressure on the former Burnley manager amid the Toffees’ disappointing pre-season. Before beating Preston North End 3-0 in their last summer friendly, the perennial Merseyside strugglers had gone winless in their opening three off-season games (D1, L2), conceding multiple goals in each fixture. Back at Goodison Park, where they won five consecutive matches toward the end of last season, Everton will look for another confidence booster ahead of the new campaign.

On the other hand, Roma missed out on a top-five Serie A finish by an inch in 2023/24 and will compete in the Europa League this season. Daniele De Rossi has reinforced his frontline in the summer with the additions of Artem Dovbyk and Matias Soule, with the latter delivering a goal and an assist in a 4-0 demolition of Barnsley last time out. That victory halted Roma’s underwhelming three-match winless run in pre-season (D2, L1), seeing ‘I Giallorossi’ eclipse their scoring tally from those three games (3). Worryingly for De Rossi, his men are winless on their last four road trips to face top-tier opposition (D2, L2), casting doubt on their bid to post back-to-back wins for the first time since mid-April.